


we were made to win

by heartstrings



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, First Time, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Hand Jobs, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-01-30 20:59:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12661299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartstrings/pseuds/heartstrings
Summary: Platonic best friends Patrick and Jonny look to solve their respective cash-flow problems by making an adult film together. As the cameras roll, however, the duo begin to sense that they may have more feelings for each other than they previously thought. Or...Patrick and Jonny make a porno.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be my contribution to the movie fic fest that happened several months back, but I didn't finish in time. But I did finish! Fic is based on [Zack and Miri Make a Porno](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1007028/). You don't need to know anything about the movie, however, to read this. Thanks to toewsyourheart, boodreaus, and thundersquall for looking this over, catching my mistakes, and for all the support and encouragement. It means so much to me!

“What if we make a porno?” Patrick asks.

Cheers ring out as Steph Curry hits a slick three-pointer from midcourt on TV. Patrick shoves almost an entire buffalo wing in his mouth, bones and all, just for something to do instead of fidget under Jonny's stare.

His eyes are widening, even as he scoffs, “Are you actually serious? You can't be fucking serious.”

“I'm totally serious,” Patrick says.

“I’m not blowing some random dude, Kaner.”

“You don’t have to,” Patrick says, nonchalantly. “You can blow me.”

Jonny’s brow furrows so deeply Patrick thinks he might pop a vein.

“ _What_?”

Patrick grins. “Okay, just hear me out…”

*

_A Week Earlier_

It figures the one morning Patrick wakes up late Jonny's already in the shower and hogging all of the hot water. He probably shouldn't have hit snooze twice on his alarm, but it’s February in Chicago and their heat is turned down to sixty degrees to save money. So the thought of moving out from under his four comforters is soul-crushing.

He forgoes bathing for now in place of some fresh clothes and a strategically placed hat, one of the many reasons he owns about 124 of them; loading up on three extra shirts, and two pairs of socks. There’s a chance he resembles a walking, talking swaddled infant, but warmth is preferable to looking fly.

The main living area is colder than his room, so Patrick snags his jacket off one of the kitchen table chairs to bundle himself inside of as he goes in search for something to eat. Their apartment is small, but tidy, and even if most of their furniture and appliances are secondhand they’re not in dire conditions. 

The kitchen is the one area that’s cluttered. Well, except for Jonny’s room. There are dirty dishes stacked in the sink and PowerBar wrappers on the counter next to a pile of bills they’ve both been avoiding for months. The thicker the pile gets, the more anxious Patrick becomes even thinking about glancing at it. Instead he pushes it aside to reach for the coffee maker to start a pot. It’s half past nine and his shift starts in ten minutes, but if he doesn’t have some caffeine soon he’s going to cry. And his tears will turn into little baby icebergs on his cheeks because it’s colder than the Arctic tundra in this frosty dump.

“Jonny!” Patrick yells. “Where are the filters?”

No answer.

He looks through a few more cabinets. No dice.

“JON!”

“What?” Jonny says, head appearing from the now-open bathroom door. Steam spills out from behind him, tantalizingly warm. Jonny’s hair is damp, his cheeks flushed a blotchy red and much too distracting.

“Where are the damn coffee filters? I can’t find them.”

“I used the last one yesterday.”

Patrick gasps. “Fucker! When?”

“I don’t know,” Jonny shrugs, one water droplet dripping down his cheek to his bare chest. “When I got home from the rink?”

Patrick scowls and turns away. “Buy more. Today.”

“Don’t get bossy with me, you haven’t paid for the last three trips to the grocery store.”

He’s probably giving Patrick that look, the one he hates where Jonny sounds all uppity, with the raised eyebrows and gentle admonishment. Sometimes he’ll even point a finger like he’s Patrick’s fucking dad or his high school librarian. Patrick refuses to turn around and acknowledge Jonny on principle. REFUSES.

“I haven’t been getting many shifts at work,” he says, searching through the fridge. “You know that.”

“Just say please, Patrick,” Jonny offers.

Patrick spins around ready to give Jonny the finger for that precious little command, to find him beaming, eyes twinkling, and still fucking wet all over.

“Eat my ass,” he throws back cheerfully.

“ _Kaner_ ,” Jonny says.

“You don't want to?”

“Jesus Christ.”

“No, still just Patrick,” he says, tongue poking out between his teeth.

Jonny bites back a grin. “Do you want your damn filters or not?”

He could conceivably stand around all day going back and forth with Jonny like this. It’s one of their favorite past times. Unfortunately that wouldn’t bring him any closer to caffeine or work, and he needs one for the other. So he sighs, dramatically, and grits out, “Yes...please.”

“You got it,” Jonny nods, easy, and disappears back into the bathroom. At least he knows when to quit. Although, technically he won that round so it was Patrick that gave in. Fuck. He’ll get him next time. Guaranteed.

“Can you hurry up though? I gotta be at work in, like, five minutes,” he yells, loud enough the next door neighbors bang on their shared wall. “I’ll be waiting in the car, don’t be long. ‘Kay, thanks!”

He can hear Jonny’s groan through the door.

_Score._

*

The Skylark Motel is a dive. The entire residence is approximately a thousand years old and hasn’t been renovated in at least half that time. Everything is falling apart: from fixtures to furniture to the peeling wallpaper and the stained 70’s style orange carpet. It’s a hot mess that isn’t bettered by its sketchy clientele of cheating spouses or junkie addicts, but it does have a gritty sort of charm.

Patrick mans the front desk five days a week, booking rooms and generally maintaining the chaos that comes with managing such a circus. The actual manager, Ken, only comes around once a month to make sure nothing’s burnt down or seriously broken, and then fades into the ether again like some kind of mysterious uncle that barely pretends to give a shit. 

It’s not exactly the most intellectually challenging of jobs, but then, it’s never boring either.

“So,” Kris says, first thing after he sees Patrick. “Some kid puked in the pool last night.”

Patrick grimaces. “Did you clean it up?”

“Yo, you know how I get sick if I smell that shizz. No way.”

“Oh, so now I have to deal with it? Thanks.”

Patrick moves to one of the computers to go over the previous night’s activities, then pulls up his work email to check for any messages.

“I’ll make it up to you?” Kris offers.

“Yeah you will. Go get me some Starbucks, stat.”

Kris, because he’s a shithead, stands at attention and salutes. “Yessir! Boss man, sir!”

There’s an email from the local electrician about the monthly check up happening later this week, but nothing so urgent Patrick can’t realistically put it off to clean the vomit, of course. He can feel a headache brewing.

“Jonny said I was being bossy too, but he can suck it,” Patrick murmurs, grouchy, and tired and so, so very caffeine deprived.

“I _bet_ he can,” Kris says, waggling his eyebrows.

“Oh, shut the fuck up.” Patrick reaches out to swipe at him and misses, listening as Kris chuckles all the way out the door.

Maybe this is karma.

*

“I’m starving. What are we having for dinner?” Patrick asks when he arrives home later that day. It’s evening, the sky a twilight blue, and his stomach is growling like an angry cat.

He throw his keys on the table by the door, passing Jonny in the living room as he goes. There’s a bowl of food in his lap and a remote in one hand as he flicks through channels on their cracked plasma TV.

Patrick frowns at him, nonplussed. They'd argued through text messages for forty fives minutes earlier about whether they were going to eat out or at home, with no conclusion. It seems Jonny’s made the executive decision to go ahead without him regardless.

Jonny catches his glare and grins.“I made some pesto pasta and garlic bread, it’s in the fridge. Just needs to be heated up.”

“You ate without me?”

“No, I just didn’t want to wait to start cooking until you were home.”

“Uh, good thinking,” Patrick's says, sheepishly.

It's not that Jonny isn't allowed to eat without him, but they have a routine, okay. And Patrick likes to be included in the decision making process or he gets cranky. Jonny knows this. Jonny knows this because he's the same way. It's just another reason they work well as friends and roommates. Their quirkiness is oddly complimentary.

“Go heat it up while I’m looking for the game. Two minutes, not three,” Jonny orders.

 _And people say I’m bossy_ , Patrick thinks. He's got his bowl in the microwave and is searching for the garlic bread when Jonny holds up the plate of it from where he's sitting.

“Did you get paid today because I need your half of the rent.”

Patrick sighs. “You ask me this every month like you don’t know.”

The microwave dings and he pulls his bowl out, grabbing a semi-clean fork from the sink and wiping it on his pant leg before sticking it in his bowl. Plopping down on the couch beside Jonny he reaches for the remote only to be brutally rebuffed.

“Kaner, you switch jobs every three months. It’s hard to keep track.”

“That’s a blatant exaggeration. I’ve been at the Skylark for at least four.”

Jonny gives him a look.

“Oh, stop with your face,” Patrick says, pushing Jonny's SnapBack off his head with a flick of his forefinger.

Jonny breaks into a grin. “You stop. You’re wasting your talents at that shithole.”

“It’s more stimulating than sitting like a fucking robot in front of a computer for nine hours a day at Miller Cooper & Co.”

“Why do you need to be stimulated? It’s a job.”

Patrick takes a huge bite of pasta, stuffing it all in his mouth as he says, “Oh, I need it bad.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Jonny says, bored. Not rising to the bait.

“I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT EXCITEMENT, JON,” he declares. “I MUST HAVE ADVENTURE.”

The neighbors bang on their shared wall. It's paper thin and mutually annoying to all involved, but Patrick had to listen to Kara in apartment 57 moan like a dying cat last Saturday afternoon while she got dicked down by her boyfriend for an hour so he doesn't really give a shit.

Jonny leans in, startling him out of his thoughts for the moment and tugging him close by the collar of his shirt. He still smells like his cologne and aftershave from earlier that morning, a sharp woodsy scent that tingles in Patrick's toes. It's nice to be pressed up against him like this after a long day, nice to have someone to lean on. So, of course, Jonny ruins it.

He takes a quick whiff of Patrick's shirt, in some performative gesture meant to showcase his distaste of Patrick’s employment, pulling back quickly in animated disgust. “You smell like chlorine and vomit. Must be having the time of your life.”

“And I owe it allllll to youuuuuuuu,” Patrick sings.

No laughter.

Honestly, nobody appreciates his comedic timing like they should and Jonny not immediately recognizing one of _Dirty Dancing’s_ seminal classics is clearly only a reflection of Patrick’s superior taste.

“Bread me,” he says, by way of deflection, finger pointing at the plate on the other side of Jonny's lap.

Jonny tosses him a piece and tucks into his own food, chewing down bites like a demented toddler. 

Ahh delicious, buttery garlic bread, the kind to salvage a horrible day. The bread of love! Patrick rips off a section, chewing slowly and savoring every tiny, salty, chewy morsel; getting lost in the bliss of it until Jonny hands him a flyer.

On screen the Hawks are pissing away a power play. Typical.

“Stop passing and shoot the fucking puck! Shoot it! What’s this?”

“Remember Jordan Staal from Chamberlin House? Graduated our year?”

“The one with the, like, seven brothers?” Patrick asks.

“Yeah. He’s throwing a little reunion party on Saturday. I told him we’d go.”

“Hey, fuck off,” Patrick squawks. “Maybe I was busy.”

Jonny shoots him the eyebrow of dubiousness. “Are you?”

“Well...no. But that’s besides the point.”

“And what’s the point?”

“The probability of this party being lame as fuck is so high it’s not even worth discussing. Also, you can’t just accept invitations for me.”

There. A perfectly valid and reasonable argument made.

“Yes I can,” Jonny disagrees.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Jonny,” he says, serious now.

“Patrick,” Jonny imitates. “I did. Get over it.”

Patrick scowls. This is bullshit. He’s perfectly happy not going places and not doing things with his no money.

“What happened to you needing excitement! Adventure! More stimulation!” Jonny asks as he gets up off the couch to put his empty bowl in the sink. He’s smiling at Patrick now like he’s already won.

 _Motherfucker._

Patrick loves garlic bread. It’s very precious to him, and there’s only this one half eaten bit left.

He throws his remaining piece at Jonny’s head.

Patrick loves garlic bread, but sometimes garlic bread must be sacrificed for the greater good.

*

After all of Patrick’s huffing and puffing about not wanting to go to this meaningless party, it’s very fitting that on Saturday night, when he’s showering for said party, the water suddenly goes out while he’s in the middle of shampooing his hair. 

He pulls back the shower curtain enough to pop his head out and shouts for Jonny. Soap is about to get in his eyes.

“What?!” Jonny calls from the other room.

“The water stopped.”

“Just now?”

“Is that a real question?” Patrick says, irritated. “Yes, right fucking now!”

“I’m just asking.” He says, and he’s closer, possibly in the bathroom with him, but Patrick can’t be sure because shampoo in running down his entire face, into his mouth.

“Well cut it out and help meeee,” he whines. The room temperature is cooling as the steam dissipates around him, and he’s naked, and covered in Herbal Essence, and truly regretting not paying last month’s water bill.

When Jonny returns with a bottled water Patrick doesn’t even care that's he's probably flashing his naked ass as he blindly pulls the shower curtain away to reach out for it.

“This is gonna make us late,” Jonny says, sounding a mix of strangled and amused. Maybe he swallowed his own tongue while laughing at Patrick’s misfortune. 

One can only hope.

*

The party is at the Underground. He’s been here before when he was an undergrad and clubs were more of a fun thing than frat parties if you weren’t into the greek life scene. Patrick spent a good portion of college being fairly broke too, instead spending time in the dorms getting wasted on cheap alcohol with Jonny, Duncs, Brent, and Dayna. It was better to sit around playing drinking games while watching Top Gun, catching movies at the union, or duct taping Andrew’s door shut than going out, but when they did, clubs had their appeal. A sloppy dancefloor makeout or filthy backroom handie or two went a long way in helping him explore in a way he couldn’t in high school in Buffalo. It also helped him find his first and only longterm boyfriend, Cole.

But that’s a story for another time.

Jordan greets them a few minutes after they make it inside the private room he's rented for his party. There’s over fifty people here, at least, maybe closer to seventy-five, and Patrick knows not a one of them outside of the tiny handful of his fellow alums. The room, although smaller than the club itself, has a similar aesthetic of bright colors and dark accents, every piece of furniture sleek and complimentary to the sparsely decorated walls. A bar sits in the middle of the room, a bartender serving drinks while servers walk by with platters of hors d'oeuvres. Patrick really wants to try that seared tuna wrapped bread roll - looks fucking delightful.

Unfortunately, Jordan exists and enjoys interrupting his plans, once again.

“Hey, guys,” he says, blocking Patrick’s path to one of the servers. He sticks a hand out for Patrick to shake. “Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for inviting us,” Jonny says, cordial as ever.

“How’ve you been?” Jordan asks, looking at Patrick.

“Oh, ya know, champagne wishes and caviar dreams,” Patrick says, smiling all teeth.

“Uh nice?” Jordan says dryly, unimpressed.

He was always more of Jonny's friend than Patrick's. They have some special Canadian bond that Patrick’s never quite understood or cared for, and it doesn't have anything to do with the fact that the two of them were tight before Patrick came along. Okay maybe it does, but regardless Patrick's never appreciated Jordan’s pretentious opinions or the way he's always looked down his nose at anyone that didn't fit into his socio-economic bracket. To put it plainly, he's a prick.

“Actually,” he goes on, as if Patrick never spoke, “I got engaged last month to my girlfriend Shane, back in August, and was promoted to junior associate at the firm in September.”

His chest is all puffed up with pride, his gelled hair perfectly in place.

“Congrats, man. That’s really great,” Jonny says, genuine.

“Really really great,” Patrick adds, less so. “Super great. Is this an open bar? I need a drink.”

*

Turns out “open bar” to Jordan means a three drink max which was neither enough to get Patrick sufficiently buzzed or to make the snooty people there less obnoxious. Three drinks? What a fuckin’ cheapskate.

“Well, that was an informative night,” he says as him and Jonny head toward the L train. “I, for one, learned a lot. Like how I never want to subject myself to that kind of lameass excuse for a party ever again.”

“You’re in a pissy mood,” Jonny says, quiet. He's been uncharacteristically nonverbal all night.

“Yeah well, you made me go, now you have to deal with me,” Patrick grumbles. He exaggerates the scowl on his face in hopes it’ll earn him an exasperated eyeroll.

It does, Jonny huffing out a laugh and reaching over to poke at the corner of Patrick's mouth.

“Hey, turn that frown upside down.”

“Get off,” Patrick protests, but he’s already pushing his arm against Jonny's when he pulls away.

This is better than any party, just them together and this back forth dance they do, some part of them always finding a place close to the other. It's more familiar to him than the space he occupies on his own at times.

“No,” Jonny argues, just to be arguing. “Not until you stop.”

“You stop.”

“What am I doing?!” Jonny asks.

“Tell me why you’re acting like you actually care what those Penny Loafers think?”

“I’m not. I just wanted to see some friends, catch up, you know? I didn’t expect for them all to be doing so well so soon. I didn’t expect to feel so behind.”

“You’re not behind. It’s not a race, Jon. We’re all doing the best we can.”

“Are we?” he asks.

Patrick bites at the inside of his cheek. He tries to be upbeat about life, about his future, and their money situation - even the littler things like their mostly empty fridge and the fact that the water is currently turned off. Sometimes those problems feel manageable like walking up a long, but fixed staircase, the end not far from sight. Other times it’s like standing before Mount Everest, the top so high it’s lost in the clouds and infinite. That’s when he feels the most overwhelmed, breath caught in his chest as he tries to just keep moving forward.

He squeezes eyes shut and inhales, exhaling slowly.

Jonny’s arm slides over his shoulders, drawing him in close. “Let’s get some beers. What's twenty more bucks right? Fuck it.”

“And some wings?” Patrick asks hopefully. “You should feed me after what I went through tonight.”

“Deal,” Jonny grins.

*

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Patrick asks later. They're at Timothy o’Tooles, Patrick’s favorite sports bar. Wings and beer have been procured as they sit tucked away in a corner booth with the Bulls game on in the background.

“Does what bother me?”

Jonny takes a long pull from his bud light, licking the wetness off his lips. Patrick gets momentarily distracted before dipping his wing in ranch sauce.

“That people our age are out there being successful and getting married, having kids, making, frankly, an obscene amount of cash. And we haven’t paid our power bill since January.”

“November,” Jonny corrects.

“Oh shit ,” he says. They really need to get on that.

Jonny rubs at the back of his neck. It's one of his tells, Patrick's learned over the years, and it means he's about to lay some truth on the situation. Or well, Jonny's version of the truth anyway.

“There isn’t a timetable on success, Kaner. We can do whatever we set our minds too as long as we work hard to achieve our goals. I believe in us. Don’t you?”

Patrick smiles, he can't help it. “Look, as much as I usually dig the hell out of your motivational poster pep talks can we get real for a moment? We might be evicted next month and neither of us have a better income option for the near future. So what the fuck are we actually going to do?”

“You think your parents wouldn’t loan you money if you really needed it?”

That was a little out of left field.

“I’m sure they would, but I don’t want to ask. It’s not their responsibility and it...I just don’t want my dad on my case again.”

“Then what do you want to do? Because you know my parents are strapped right now. I can try to take on another job, but I can’t quit my internship at the Tribune,” Jonny says.

“I know. I wouldn’t ask you to do that. I’m uh,” Patrick hesitates. “I’ve been thinking about this idea I’ve had for the last few days.”

“Okay. And?”

“And...porn.”

“What?”

“Porn.”

“What?”

“Porn. P-O-R-N. Porn,” Patrick repeats.

Jonny's eyes bulge out of his head, just a fraction. “Stop saying the fucking word and explain what you mean.”

“What if we make a porno?” Patrick asks.

Cheers ring out as someone hits a slick three pointer from midcourt on TV. Patrick shoves almost an entire buffalo wing in his mouth, bones and all, just for something to do instead of fidget under Jonny's stare.

His eyes are widening, even as he scoffs. “Are you actually serious? You can't be fucking serious.”

“I'm totally serious,” Patrick says.

“I’m not blowing some random dude, Kaner.”

“You don’t have to,” Patrick says, nonchalantly. “You can blow me.”

Jonny’s brow furrows so deeply Patrick thinks he might pop a vein.

“ _What_?”

Patrick grins. “Okay, just hear me out. It’s an open call for amatuer porn. People are really into it. I saw it on Max Sawyer.”

“On what?”

“Max Sawyer,” Patrick reiterates. “It’s a gay porn website like Sean Cody.” 

Jonny stares at him blankly.

“Corbin Fischer?” 

Jonny squints.

“Dude where the hell do you watch your porn?” Patrick laughs.

“I don’t know,” Jonny shrugs. “Pornotube like everyone else? I didn’t know you had such fancy masturbatory requirements, man.”

“I don’t. I just have good taste.”

Jonny squints again. He’s a master squinter. “Whatever. What does this have to do with anything again?”

“They’re offering, like, 5k a pop for well put together videos that they can feature on their website. We make one, make bank, pay our bills, viola! I’m a genius,” Patrick says, popping some finger guns. If he had a pair of sunglasses with him he'd slide those puppies on too for maximum effect.

“You’re definitely something,” Jonny says. He appears wholly unimpressed by this idea, but Patrick will help him see the light.

“What do we have to lose?” he asks. It's a valid question.

“Our dignity?” Jonny offers. “Our self-respect? Our privacy?”

“Nah, I don’t need any of that. I’m good. MONEY!”

“Our friendship?” Jonny tries.

Patrick figured he’d spend at least ten more minutes on the dignity track before he brought their friendship into the conversation. Whipping out the big guns already, he sees.

“Don’t be stupid,” he says. “We’ll be fine. We always are. We got over our last fight in like five minutes.”

“It’s porn, not the last strawberry toaster strudel, Patrick!” Jonny groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Patrick reaches out and runs his fingers over Jonny's forehead and into his hair, once then twice.

“You’re so serious right now. Jonny, it’ll be fine. We can do this. We need the money. And it’s us. It’s you and me and I’m never worried about anything when we do it together. Are you?”

“No,” Jonny agrees, reluctantly. Very reluctantly.

“See! It’ll be easy as pie.”


	2. Chapter 2

“I have a lot of worries,” Jonny begins. “Number one: this was a bad idea. Number two: what the fuck are we doing? Number three: I’m freezing. My nuts are becoming nutsicles.”

“Let me warm them up for you,” Patrick says, seductively. Or tries to, scootching closer to him on their couch before cupping Jonny’s balls over his sweatpants.

“Oh my god.” Jonny jerks. He accidentally kicks the coffee table, which almost knocks the tripod over. 

Patrick hops up to steady it, checking that his ancient digital camera is still recording. 

This is their first run-through. Or well, their first attempt at a run-through, anyway. They decided to go the simple route with production, create the appearance that they’re just two guys, maybe boyfriends, hooking up in their home and fooling around on the couch. It's not as if they needed a fancy set or CGI effects to get their dicks out for some fun. And if the causal gay porn viewer is that concerned with whether their apartment is tidy or the lighting is perfect, well then, they can go fuck themselves without Patrick and Jonny’s help.

The one major downside of trying to film this in their own home is that they've turned down the heat to save on the power bill, and it's colder than the abominable snowman’s tit.

“Your hands are freezing,” Jonny says. His voice is at full volume. Patrick will have to cut that out later, along with Jonny's mildly attractive scowl, and any of the other nonsense they’ve been whispering back and forth that’s decidedly off-track. No big deal though, Patrick can work this; he used to shoot some of his family home movies when he was a kid. He's basically an expert.

Warming his hands with his breath, Patrick settles on the couch again, this time straddling Jonny’s lap in one silky move. He runs his hands up and down Jonny’s chest.

“Do you like that, honey?”

Jonny snorts, lips trembling with contained laughter. “Don’t call me that. My mom calls me that.”

Patrick holds in a sigh, tries another tactic.

“What can I do for you, sexy?” he purrs, pressing in close to mock-whisper in Jonny's ear. “How can I make you feel good?”

“Get your elbow out of my ribcage?” Jonny smiles.

“Shhhhhhh,” Patrick shushes him, placing a finger over Jonny’s stupidly pink and sweetly curved lips. “I know how to heat things up in here. Let me just,” he continues, slipping his hand over Jonny's taut abs and beneath the elastic of his waistband to reach inside his pants. Jonny’s surprisingly half-hard despite the endless complaints and teasing amusement. When Patrick rubs his palm over the smooth length of him, Jonny sucks in a sharp breath. 

Something in the background pops, loud like a firecracker on the Fourth of July. Then the apartment goes dark.

Jonny howls with laughter.

*

Kris turns over Patrick's camera, looking it over with disdain.

“How old is this piece of shit?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick shrugs. “Eight, maybe, ten years old. Can you help me or not?”

“It’s got a USB port, so yeah. What’s on it?”

“Ummmmm,” Patrick says, glancing around. Him and Kris are sitting at the front desk of the Skylark. It's noon on a Monday and the place is quieter than a graveyard, but Patrick’s ears go hot just knowing what he's about to explain.

Kris notices immediately, mouth going into an evil grinch grin.

“Is it something dirty? It is, isn’t it?! Awww Patty, you dawg.”

“It’s not what you think,” Patrick says, hushed. “It’s me and Jonny.”

“That’s not actually making me think it’s any less dirty,” Kris counters.

Patrick groans.

Ever since they met, Kris has been under the illusion that Patrick and Jonny aren't just friends, but secretly more. Why Kris believes they would be more and Patrick would just refuse to admit anything, he has no earthly idea. Maybe he thinks they're private. 

That assumption, however, is about to be blown out of the water.

“Look, it’s for a porn site. We’re trying to make some extra cash. So we’re, you know, filming one ourselves to submit.”

Kris barely even blinks at this admission. “On an eight-year-old Panasonic? That’s weak as fuck, dude.”

“It’s not exactly like we can afford the new cutting edge technology right now. You got a better idea, Spielberg?”

“Of course.”

“Let’s hear it then.”

“You give me a cut of the money and you can use my camera and, well, me. For professional purposes only. I’m great with a handheld,” Kris offers.

This all feels too easy, like Kris is about to flip a switch and make fake gagging noises at him, maybe shout out some idiotic homophobic jokes, like his cousin Mikey used to do when Patrick was fifteen. 

He peers at Kris dubiously. “And you won’t be weirded out about...seeing some dicks?”

“Nah,” Kris waves him off, calm and even-keeled as ever. “Love is love. Maybe throw in a free pizza, though, too.”

“It’s not...It’s just porn,” Patrick sighs.

Kris winks. “Whatever you say, sugar.”

*

“Quick question before we get started: soooooo why here?” Kris asks.

They're in the McFetridge Sports Center ice rink where Jonny teaches skating lessons to preteens three days a week. He also maintains the equipment and helps the zamboni guy, Kirby, with some of the clean up, even though it's not required as part of his job description. In this case, Jonny’s generosity has bought them Kirby’s discretion and a few precious hours alone in the rink to film some sexin’.

Jonny bypasses explaining all of that and instead says simply, “Our power is temporarily unavailable.”

“Also convenience,” Patrick adds, slipping the black and white striped shirt over his head. 

Jonny’s already dressed in all of his old hockey gear, a modge-podge of pieces from high school that are a bit too small and pieces from the beer league they both play in throughout the year. He's waiting off to the side, his expression both apprehensive and long-suffering.

Kris’ brow furrows further at their vague responses. “I see. I see. Jumping off of that: why the uniforms? I thought this was supposed to be, like, a spontentaous, amatuer type of scenario?”

“That’s what I said,” Jonny calls from halfway down the rink where he’s skating around.

Patrick rolls his eyes. “We’re spontaneously role playing. At a rink. On a Tuesday night. Just. Fucking go with it alright. It’ll be hot. Trust me.”

“You’re the boss, boss!” Kris says.

“But you probably shouldn’t be,” Jonny murmurs, shooting up the ice and doing a few quick circles around Patrick.

“Shut your mouth.”

“I thought the point was I’m supposed to open it further?” Jonny says dryly, winking.

Patrick bites back a smile. “Go get in place. We’re on the clock.”

They wait while Kris sets up one of the cameras to his liking, stabilizing the tripod on the ice so it won't slip and fall. He's got another camera in his hand that he’ll use for close up shots, so they can edit between the two later. When things appear to be in place he whips out a tiny hand sized clapboard, snapping it shut.

“And action!”

Patrick blows his plastic whistle. “Interference!”

“What are you talking about, ref? I wasn’t even that deep in the crease!” Jonny cries, offended. He sounds melodramatic and pissy, hamming it up for the camera, which is hilarious because it’s an almost exact replication of how outraged he truly acts whenever a penalty is called on him when they're playing for real.

Patrick skates up to him quick, moving boldly into his space. “Don’t you point your stick at me, bud! Two in the box. Let’s go.”

Jonny pushes in closer, instead of away, just like how they blocked it in their script. It was written on a crude, loose-leaf piece of notebook paper and shoved in Patrick’s back pocket on the way to the rink, constructed in all of five minutes, but it’s the game plan they both agreed to go with, so it technically still counts.

“Can’t we work something out?”Jonny asks, pretending to suddenly turn coy. His expression shifts from disgruntled to seductive, voice lowering an octave or two. “Maybe you could point your stick at me instead? If you know what I mean.”

This dialogue is absolute shit and it’s even worse hearing it out loud, but it’s surprisingly easy to swallow his laughter when Jonny drops to his knees in front of Patrick in a silky one-two move.

“Come here, stud,” he says, cupping Jonny’s jaw with a shaky hand. “I want to see what a star player can really do.”

Jonny smirks up at him and drops his gloves to the ice, making quick work of undoing Patrick’s pants and pulling his cock out without ever breaking eye contact. Patrick can’t help the shiver that jolts through his body. Being exposed to the cold air should make his balls want to shrivel up and die, but Jonny’s hands on him are surprisingly warm and practiced, moving over his bare midriff and down to the base of his dick, to take hold.

“That’s good,” Patrick stutters out as Jonny grips one hand around his hip to keep him still, the other beginning to jack him in long, torturous pulls. “Suck me, big boy.”

In the background Kris snorts, yanking Patrick abruptly out of the moment. He looks around a little dazed, eyes heavy and glazed over, almost like he forgot where they were for a second.

This isn’t something he does - having sex in public or letting other people watch - it’s never been what he’s into. He likes his privacy, prefers when it’s just between him and his partner. This isn’t about fulfilling some hidden desire or kink, it’s about money and making an opportunity for him and Jonny to pull themselves out of the hole they’re in.

“Hey,” Jonny says softly, “look at me.” He slips his free hand underneath Patrick’s shirt, fingertips brushing over his stomach and lower ribcage. The request combined with Jonny’s long tongue licking around him for the first time completely obliterates any other concerns he has for the moment.

It’s been awhile since anyone has touched Patrick but himself, and the sensation of a hot, wet, willing mouth is overwhelming. That it’s Jonny being the one to suck him shouldn’t have him feeling like he’s five seconds away from blowing his load. He’s known Jonny for years, seen Jonny in all manner of unflattering circumstances, and yet. 

And yet, having Jonny on his knees in front of Patrick, his mouth opened wide around Patrick’s dick, the little lip scar Jonny earned playing lacrosse for their intramural team sophomore year rubbing along the length of Patrick, and Jonny’s big, dark eyes staring up at him fervently is too much. 

It’s more than enough to have Patrick crying out as he gasps, “Oh shit. Oh fuck,” and comes, spilling deeply down the back of Jonny’s throat.

Jonny chokes for a second, startled, hands clenching at Patrick’s pants for balance, but he doesn’t pull back, letting Patrick finish inside the heat of his amazing mouth. So polite, so perfect, so pretty.

Wait. 

_Pretty?_ He doesn’t know what he’s thinking. He’s gone sex stupid, clearly.

Off to the side, Kris is cackling.

“What?” Patrick snaps.

“Not sure that counts as a two-minute minor, Patty,” Kris says.

Patrick flushes and glances down to where Jonny’s bruised, swollen mouth, slick with spit, is smirking up at him. These shitheads.

“You think this is funny?”

“I didn’t saying anything!” Jonny says, standing.

Patrick quickly tucks himself back in his pants, scowling as the tips of his ears burn hot. “Fine, you go. See if you last longer.”

“Shouldn’t be hard.” He smirks again. 

“Ba dum chiss,” Kris says, flicking his imaginary drumsticks.

Jonny smirks harder, if that’s even possible. The smirking asshole. Patrick’s going to wipe that smug little smile off his face if it’s the last thing he does. Jonny can count on that.

*

It takes Kris approximately ten-thousand years to move and reset the cameras from on the ice to inside the penalty box. Patrick complains, Jonny complains, and Kris tells them both to shut up and respect his artistry. So by the time they’re ready to roll again, some of Patrick’s ire at being chirped has waned, leaving mostly a sense of apprehension about what’s currently happening. And suddenly, viciously, he wishes anew Kris weren't here to witness this, not just him on his knees, although it's less about that, but more that he's seeing exactly what Patrick's seeing: Jonny’s pants unzipped and pulled down. They’re askew on his hips, his bare cock flushed a dark red at the tip and heavy between his legs. He’s getting a glimpse of Jonny vulnerable and bare and aroused. It's the first time Patrick's seen Jonny this way, and he's itchy with greed, wanting to keep it all to himself, even if he’s not sure why.

They exchange more cheesy dialogue after Kris says action, something about the referee returning the favor. It’s all lost on Patrick as he inhales a deep breath. 

When he kneels at Jonny’s feet, he moves in close, surrounded by the fresh scent of him, the warmth emanating from his body. He’s clean-shaven even down below, a decision they’d both agreed upon at Patrick’s recommendation, knowing from experience it makes his own dick look bigger without the foliage.

“Ready?”

“Yeah,” Jonny says, voice rough.

He isn’t fully hard yet, but even halfway there, Jonny is long and thick, completely proportional all over. Patrick licks his lips, eager now to touch, to taste. He’s always enjoyed giving head, having his mouth full and his mind focused on the task in hand. The fact that Jonny’s dick is gorgeous and he’s staring down at Patrick with heavy lidded eyes only means he’s more eager to begin.

Starting with a few sucking kisses to the plump head of his cock, Patrick takes in every minute shift forward, every tiny hiss and moan. When he laves up the length of him from root to tip and then spears his tongue over the salty slit, Jonny smacks his palm against the glass and practically growls. Patrick’s teasing him, he knows, but it’s so fucking fun to watch Jonny writhe, all his previous arrogance now falling away. And he could keep going like this if he wanted, really draw it out, hold off until the waiting is more tortuous than pleasurable. Except then he wouldn’t get to see the way Jonny’s expression transforms from one of pinched longing to utter bliss when Patrick swallows him all the way down.

“Oh my god,” Jonny says on a broken cry. He rakes his fingers into Patrick’s curls, keeping him close, while his eyes roll up in his head when his cock hits the back of Patrick’s throat.

It barely takes more than three long pulls back and forth after that before Jonny’s done. He’s absolutely gone, blowing his load inside Patrick’s mouth, over his tongue, as Patrick continues to suck on him gently. Towards the end, he remembers vaguely, like a distant dream, where they’d made mention of facials and money shots in their notes. ‘Dude’s like money shots’, he wrote in capital letters at the bottom of the page. It’s a porn staple.

Pulling off with little time to spare, Patrick jacks the last few strings of come from Jonny’s dick onto his open mouth and wet lips. He runs the fat crown over his flat tongue one more time, then lets him go, glancing up at Jonny as he slowly licks over his dirty mouth, gathering drops of come as he goes. It tastes salty, but not overly bitter, and Patrick enjoys lapping it up, watching Jonny’s dark stare and heaving chest and knowing he wrecked him so damn quickly.

Kris has the courtesy to yell cut before Patrick has time to gloat.

“Jesus Christ, Jonny-come-early, you ever had sex before? Like anybody besides you ever touched that thing?”

It’s almost a shame to see the lust, even if it is partially fake, slide off Jonny’s face in favor of plain irritation.

“Fuck yourself with a chainsaw.”

“Whoa. You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Kris says.

Jonny glares at him, righting his pants. “Don’t bring up my mother.”

Patrick can tell Kris has another zinger he’s ready to pop off, but Patrick cuts in instead. He says, “We should reset. We’ve only got about an hour left before you have to open up. The rink, I mean.”

“Technically he already opened u-”

“Kris!” 

“Sorry,” Kris says, sheepish. “Couldn’t help myself.”

*

It’s almost dawn by the time they clean up, Kris moves the cameras over to the bench, and Patrick changes into his regular hockey gear. His phone says 5:54 am, but Jonny had stated the first lesson of the day won’t begin until eight. They should be fine.

Still, it feels like they’ve been inside the confines of the rink for days. Patrick wants to sleep and maybe not think about how this is his life right now, sitting on a bench and pulling at his own dick while Jonny rubs one out next to him.

“You okay?” Jonny says.

“Yeah, fine,” Patrick says, his dick not cooperating at the moment.

Jonnys brow furrows. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m cold and thirsty and tired. And this might possibly be the least sexiest sex I’ve ever had.”

Kris huffs. “Cameras are still rolling guys.”

Like this won’t be cut out anyway. Patrick flips him off.

Jonny ignores Kris in favor of scooting over until their bodies are pressed even closer. “Need some help?”

“Sure. Go for it,” he says, letting his wilting hard on settle against his belly.

Jonny’s left hand takes hold of his own dick as he spits into cupped palm of his right. He grasps Patrick slow with that right hand, slicking the tip first, then dragging it down the length. Patrick quivers. Jonny’s hand is big, his fingers adept and calloused in places that cause a zinging friction. When he fists Patrick’s dick and pushes his thumb under the head in the best possible way, Patrick’s blood rushes south so fast he goes dizzy.

“Oh,” he pants, hips thrusting forward at the way Jonny’s fingers make a tight ring around his crown. He’s got magic hands or something. Magic dick-jacking hands. It’s brain-scrambling. Enough to have Patrick slumping back against Jonny’s chest and melting into his side.

“Feel good?” Jonny asks.

“Yes, fuck. Keep going,” he says, mindless. “Please.”

He reaches out blindly and knocks Jonny’s left hand away so he can wrap his own around Jonny’s leaking cock, pumping at it inelegantly.

“Faster?”

“Oh god. Oh yes. Oh no!” Patrick chokes.

“No?” Jonny says, confused.

In the distance, Patrick can see through the glass and into the lobby where two of Jonny’s co-workers are walking in.

“Oh shitty, shit, shit, _fuck_!”

He points at the figures that have yet to see them and jumps up, rapidly pulling his clothes on as Jonny and Kris realize what’s happening and scramble around him.

“FUCK. Let’s go,” Jonny whispers, tripping over his own feet on the ice and falling onto his ass. 

Kris almost brains himself with his tripod.

Patrick would laugh, normally, but there’s no time for humor when you’re about to be discovered for shooting amateur porn in a recreational sports facility in the early light of a Wednesday morning. He’d rather not have to even try explaining that one to a stranger, or even the authorities, thank you.

Luckily they drag their asses and equipment off just in the nick of time, dignity following limply behind them. It’s not Patrick’s worst Tuesday night.

*

So far, the space heaters are barely living up to their name. Patrick is not impressed.

After the great blackout of the previous Sunday, Kenny, their landlord, informed them that the reason for the power outage was due to a busted breaker and some very old, very damaged wiring that needed to be replaced. At first he was glad it wasn’t another overdue bill coming to collect. Losing one’s heating in the middle of a Chicago winter? Not ideal. Except now he and Jonny are stuck with several half-ass functioning space heaters with cords running out into the hallway, candles for lights, and no Internet.

To keep himself preoccupied throughout the day, he hung out at Brent and Duncan’s place, mooching off their cable, food, and heat. Dayna came over at one point to whisk Brent away for an early dinner or maybe some afternoon delight, Patrick’s not sure, nor does he want to find out. That’d left him and Duncs on the couch duking it out between NBA highlights on ESPN or Duncs’ weird obsession with HGTV. In the end, Duncs won, as it was his house, and because Jonny had texted he was getting off work soon. 

Sitting on their couch waiting for Jonny to arrive so they can go eat is miserable, bereft of any resources. He may not be as much in debt as he assumed, but he is cold and bored, and honestly, that might be worse.

There are chores Patrick can do without power, like gather garbage or dust or collect dirty clothes for the laundry, but what he ends up doing instead is sitting at his desk and skimming through the files on his camera’s SD card. The video of him and Jonny trying to film on the couch is there, although the lighting is atrocious and Patrick sitting on his lap blocks both of their faces from view. He should just delete it.

Later.

After the video, there’s a collection of photos from his senior year at the University of Chicago. Graduation day, the last day of classes, further back to St. Patrick’s Day and their favorite campus bar, New Year’s and Christmas, his birthday celebrations at Timothy O’Tooles and the United Center, Homecoming. He skims past the ones during the summer faster, which mostly consist of his attempt at artistic landscape shots of sunsets and the lake where his family vacations, his sisters’ portraits, and his mom’s hands while kneading dough. There are more shots of this kind as he rewinds through his junior year, black and white photos of Jonny, candids of his friends, macro shots of pencils and water bottles, his shitty panoramas. He used to love it, even when he told himself not to take it too seriously. He used to carry that camera around him almost everywhere.

It wasn’t something he fell into on purpose, enjoying photography. He’d needed an elective to take his freshman year among all his Gen Ed courses and Journalism and Democracy didn’t have any prerequisites. It was as simple as that. Except two minutes after class had begun on the first day, Jonny had walked in, sat down beside Patrick and asked, “Is this seat taken?” like he didn’t much care if it belonged to someone else.

Patrick had liked his cocky ass immediately.

They ended up working on every class group project together that semester and signed up for Photojournalism the following semester. They never looked back.

Becoming friends with Jonny felt innate, like discovering a country he’d always known. They lived in the same dorm, had a similar schedule their freshman year, liked many of the same people. Even when they bickered and argued, there was an edge to it, an effortlessness with which Patrick hadn’t experienced with other people. 

It’s not as if making friends comes strenuously to him. He's always been a bit of a chameleon, able to swing between the more naturally guarded, introverted side of himself, and the social side that takes work, but is no less important. Being shy and a listener more than a gregarious talker is a skin he's worn easier than most others. It’s never for lack of not wanting to speak so much as it's been about saying things that matter when he does, finding the right person to talk to. And he loves to laugh, loves when others laugh with him.

Jonny’s laughed at every joke he’s ever made, even the dumb ones, the idiotic off-hand remarks, the witty jabs that go over people’s heads, his eyes catching Patrick’s across the room and finding amusement in a simple shared look.

Perhaps that’s why they work, the two of them together, opposites on paper yet compatible in all the right ways. Or maybe it’s just simple gravity, he can’t be sure.

The thing about Jonny is, he’s the most consistent person Patrick knows, confident in what he does and the way he carries himself, warm in a way that draws everyone to him, even complete strangers. His intensity can be overbearing at times, his entire presence even, overwhelming if you're not used to him. There's a certain charm to it though, frustratingly enough. Even if Patrick doesn't always like to admit it, has never liked to admit it.

But then their propensity for stubbornness is something they share in equal measure and to a fault.

“Hey,” Jonny says from behind him.

The sound causes Patrick to jump, so absorbed as he is in his own thoughts.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” he says. “How was work?”

Jonny blows out a breath and steps from Patrick’s doorway into his room. “Oh, you know, another day, another dollar, another edited article I won’t get credit for. Whatcha doin’?”

“I was going to look at the vid we took the night the power went out, but I got distracted by these pictures of us from Halloween junior year.”

Jonny stands behind Patrick's chair, snaking his arms around Patrick's shoulders. “Was that the year we were eggs and bacon or Wayne and Garth?”

“Eggs and bacon,” Patrick says. He points at a picture of them with Cole and Jonny’s date for the night, Rebecca. Or maybe it was Reese? The year before that was definitely Ethan, and they were all annoyingly gorgeous, Patrick remembers that. 

Jonny hooks his chin over Patrick's shoulder, peering at the screen. “That’s right.”

Patrick laughs, the sound dull. “Remember how Cole wanted to be the hot sauce in our breakfast trio and you told him he could be toast or find his own costume?”

“I remember him being a little bitch about not getting his way, that’s what I remember,” Jonny mutters.

“So then he dressed as Batman and fucked some dude that looked like a twinky Superman,” Patrick says.

It wasn’t really the costume issue that sent Cole over the edge. That wasn’t the reason things blew up between him and Patrick, or well, it certainly wasn’t the only reason. Cole was one of the most laidback people Patrick had ever met, until Jonny came around.

People frequently thought, before they got to know him and Jonny, that they were a couple. They shared space like they did time and affection: often and without reserve.

Some people cared, some didn’t, but Cole was one of the few who always took it too personally, too far. In retrospect, Patrick feels stupid for having stayed with him as long as he did, for putting up with his bullshit jealousy, the petty remarks aimed at Jonny, and his immature possessive tantrums. If Jonny’s dates were ever put off by their friendship, they either didn’t last or simply didn’t come around when Patrick was with him. Cole would get angry, whiny, or both.

Cole was neither hot sauce or toast, but a soggy slice of bread, in the end.

Behind him Jonny grunts. “Piece of shit. I don’t know if I told you this, but I hated him. A lot.”

“Yeah you told me about seven thousand times,” Patrick says, cracking a grin. “I think you were more pissed about the cheating than I was.”

“WELL! He wasn’t worth your time.”

“I could say the same about your last three hookups.”

“No, you can’t.”

Patrick twists enough to catch Jonny’s eye. “Why not?”

“Because they were casual. I wasn’t invested, not really.”

“Not at all?” Patrick asks, suspicious.

Jonny shrugs. “I mean the sex was good? If that counts.”

Patrick’s stomach rolls unpleasantly at those words.

“Anyway, I still don’t get why you got to be the bacon. I could’ve been the bacon - was my point,” he says. He tries to sit forward, break the contact. Jonny’s breath is tickling the nape of his neck and it’s too much all of sudden.

Jonny pulls him nearer, chuckles low against his ear. “Let it go, buddy. You’re an egg. A good egg.”

“Shut up,” Patrick mumbles, pouty.

There’s a beat between one breath and the next and Patrick expects Jonny to move away, this would be the time he usually would, but he doesn’t. Instead there’s a cheek and a nose pressed to the back of his head, and Jonny’s face nuzzling into his hair.

Patrick swallows against the urge to hum. His eyes flutter shut.

“Should this be weird?” Jonny says quietly, like he doesn’t want to disturb the moment.

“Is what weird?” Patrick asks. He settles in the chair a fraction more, eyes still closed, Jonny’s body heat sinking into his skin everywhere they’re touching, soothing.

“Us doing porn. As friends.”

“Does it feel weird to you?”

“No. But maybe that’s why it is.”

He sounds hesitant in a way he rarely is, in a way that makes Patrick restless. 

“If you’re still worried about this fucking things up between us, I think the fact that we’re so chill right now after blowing each other last week shows we’re gonna be fine. Nothing’s changed. We’re good.”

“Are we?”

“Yeah, we’re great,” Patrick says, reassuring. He smiles his cool and collected smile. “Right?”

“Of course,” Jonny agrees.

But he seems uncertain.

*

For dinner, they use Jonny’s Christmas gift card and get takeout from Seven Lions. After gathering all of the space heaters together, they make a ring of warmth around the couch and huddle in close with blankets and containers of food, a pile of napkins stuck between them.

Jonny props his iPad against two old textbooks on the coffee table and they watch part of _Rogue One_ while they eat. 

“We need to look for a new apartment,” he says, glancing around their place with distaste.

“We need money first.”

“Maybe I can take on more shifts at the rink. I could probably find work stocking shelves on a night shift somewhere.”

“Jon, no,” Patrick says. “You already work like 60 hours a week. If anyone should take on another job, it’s me. But just. Can we at least give this porn thing another shot? Please? If it works, that’ll help us out for months. I know you aren’t willing to quit that easily.”

“I could sell my car?” Jonny offers.

Patrick bites back a grin. “No offense, but your car is a piece of shit, dude. It’s got over 200,000 miles on it, a rusted out bumper, and a passenger side window that won’t roll down. You’d only get thousand for that clunker, maybe. Plus we need it to get to work.”

“What can I do then?” he asks, bewildered.

Patrick leans against his side, nudges Jonny’s shoulder with his nose. “Have sex with me to make money, duh.”

Jonny’s face does this thing, like it’s fighting for control, his brow moving up and down as if he wants it to both furrow and smooth out. He ends up looking weirdly surly. 

“Well,” he sighs. “We should probably figure out where we’re going to try to film next since the rink is out, I guess. Any ideas?”

The battery on the iPad dies then, pitching the room into the dark, soft glow of candlelight, vanilla scented.

“We just need a well lit space and a warm bed, right?” 

“What if we rented a room?” Jonny says.

And...yeah. What if they did.

“Shit,” Patrick laughs. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that from the beginning. You’re brilliant.”

“I know,” Jonny says, pleased. “But um, why?”

“The Skylark! We can just use one of the empty rooms there.”

“Won’t your boss wonder what’s up?” he asks.

“You mean the one that’s never around?” Patrick counters.

“Good point.”

Outside the wind blows so hard it whips tree branches against the glass windowpanes, almost rattling the building. It’s supposed to snow overnight, another three inches. Patrick fucking hates the winter.

He fists the blanket in his hands and draws it closer up to his neck, valiantly attempting not to shudder and failing. “It’s still so fucking cold in here.”

“Well, c’mere then, dummy,” Jonny says, opening his arms. Patrick’s not quite sure what he intends to do, but he leans over into Jonny’s embrace anyway and is rewarded with all of Jonny’s amazing body heat as Jonny situates them parallel on the couch, curled together.

“Been awhile since we did this,” Patrick hums.

Jonny fits one thigh between both of Patrick’s. “Huddled together for warmth?”

“Obviously,” he says, sarcastically. What he means is they used to do this on and off in college, nap in each other’s beds or on the couch in the common room together. He can’t remember why it started, by accident probably, hanging out and one of them too lazy to walk the five feet to their own room. Dayna used to joke they cuddled more than her and Brent, but that’s a blatant lie. Those two were and still are always all over each other.

“You’re not bringin’ much to the table here, bud,” Jonny says.

Patrick realizes he’s been sort of burrowing his face into Jonny’s chest for the last few minutes, hoarding all available heat for himself.

“It’s because my entire body is frostbitten. I’m surely about to die.”

Jonny huffs out a laugh, his breath warm against Patrick’s ear. He trembles. “It was nice knowing you, Kaner cube. Get it? Like ice cube.”

“God, you’re lame,” he says, wrapping an arm around Jonny’s back and rubbing up and down his spine.

“Hey, Peeks?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe we should drop this whole...thing.” 

It takes Patrick a moment to realize he’s fitted his arm up the back of Jonny’s shirt, that he’s not, in fact, touching fabric but Jonny’s bare, smooth, sun-kissed skin. But when he moves to pull his hand away, Jonny tugs him in closer, keeps him near.

“What thing?” Patrick asks.

“The porn, I mean. It’s been such a fucking disaster so far.”

“Can’t quite say it’s been a ‘fucking disaster’ when no actual fucking has occurred yet, I’m thinking.”

“Wow. Hilarious,” Jonny says, dry as the desert.

“I’m just saying! What’s the other option? To stop? Because that’s the alternative. To give up and walk away without having even really tried. You want that?”

It’s unfair probably, for Patrick to use Jonny’s integrity, aforementioned stubbornness and unwillingness to be bad at pretty much anything against him right here, right now. It’s probably unfair, but Patrick never promised to play fair to begin with.

“I...no,” Jonny hesitates. “You’re right. We can do this.”

Patrick tangles their legs together further. “That’s what I thought.”

“We can be better,” Jonny says, more like he’s speaking to himself than anyone else.

“Damn, right.”

“The best.”

“We can win this porn,” Patrick says to Jonny’s collarbone.

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” Jonny’s collarbone responds.


	3. Chapter 3

“First rule of the day is: no more cheesy porn dialogue,” Jonny says as they enter Skylark.

Patrick waves to Vivica, who’s manning the front desk today, when they pass by, but she’s too busy dealing with a customer to notice. They head toward the elevators, Jonny popping the up button once.

Patrick frowns, pops the button twice. “Why not? It’s funny.”

“It’s porn,” Jonny says. “It doesn’t need to be funny. It needs to be hot.”

“It can be funny and hot.”

“Nobody cares about laughing when they’re trying to spank the monkey, okay.”

Spank. The. Monkey.

Patrick bursts into giggles. “You mean beat their meat?”

Jonny nods.

“You mean shucking the corn? Making the bald man cry? Jerkin the gherkin’? Shuffling your iPod? Celebrating Palm Sunday? Doing a little smoosh smoosh?”

“Enough,” Jonny says, nose scrunched up from smiling.

“But, I’ve got plenty more where those came from, sweetheart.” Patrick winks.

Jonny rolls his eyes. “And you say I’m lame.”

*

Twenty minutes later, they’re in room 326, stripping down to their boxers as Kris makes sure for the last time that the cameras are good to go.

“What’s the game plan for today?” Kris asks

“No fun, just business. DIC-tator Toews decrees it so,” Patrick says.

“You’re gonna get it,” Jonny says, low. He points at Patrick as he comes around the bed, prowling like he’s about to pounce.

“Should I start recording?” Kris asks.

Patrick ignores him.

“Oh, am I?” he grins, sticking his tongue out at Jonny.

“Yes,” Jonny says, voice deep, eyes darkening quickly.

“Thanks for the input guys, very helpful,” Kris says.

Patrick feels a thousand little goosebumps pebble up all over his skin, his dick twitching inside his shorts.

He wiggles his fingers at Jonny coyly, teasing, “Well come get me then, if you can.”

Jonny doesn’t wait to see if Kris is rolling before he jumps forward, and neither does Patrick. There isn’t time, not if he wants to evade capture. There’s an arm reaching out for him going right, but Patrick moves left, just a quick feint before he hops on the bed and gets to the other side. The mattress now between them.

“There’s only so many places you can go,” Jonny says, his expression wicked and toe-curling.

“Only if you’re fast enough to catch me,” Patrick says sweetly.

“I don’t need speed when I can read you like a book,” Jonny smiles at him dangerously.

Patrick’s nipples are tight already, his dick more than halfway there, just from the dumb words coming out of Jonny’s mouth. He needs to get a handle on himself, now. He steps forward, hoping to draw Jonny onto the bed and make a break for it, but Jonny has his number before he’s made it two steps, arms circling around his waist and lifting him off the ground.

He hangs limply over Jonny’s shoulder as Jonny struts around the room carrying him and clearly enjoying his victory.

“Gonna put me down?” he says, catching Kris shaking his head at them out of the corner of his eye.

Kris can suck it.

“No,” Jonny answers.

And he doesn’t put Patrick down so much as he flips him over and drops him on the bed.

Patrick breathes out a little oof as he bounces against the mattress, Jonny rushing to settle on top of him.

“Enjoy throwing me around, do you?”

Jonny’s grin is shark curved. “You like it.”

He moves their bodies close, fitting himself between Patrick’s open legs and bringing their cocks into alignment. There’s still cloth separating them, but it’s enough, just for this instant, to be touching like this, that Patrick goes dizzy with want.

“I think you like it more,” he says around a gasp. “You’re so hard.”

Jonny grasps one of his wrists, drawing Patrick’s hand down and over Jonny’s dick where it’s straining against his boxer briefs, thick and burning hot. 

“Hard for you,” he says, fucking against Patrick’s hand a little.

If there was ever a time for restraint, this isn’t it, and Patrick can’t be held responsible for losing control. Jonny smells like a woodsy forest, his skin all silky smooth, and his perfect dick is right there for the touching, so Patrick’s going to touch it good, goddammit. He gives two seconds of thought to drawing this out, making it a tease, but then Jonny’s pressing against him again, overwhelmingly distracting and he’s lost the thread to want, need, have.

Slipping Jonny’s boxer briefs down to touch him skin on skin might possibly be the best idea he’s ever had. The best idea anyone in the world has ever had. Go ahead and give him the Nobel Peace Prize in dick-touching. No one is going to top this. Jonny’s already leaking when Patrick gets a good grip around his crown and more pre-come spills out as Patrick thumbs over the head and drags it down the length of him, slicking him up.

“God, you’re wet,” Patrick says in awe, in appreciation. He repeats the movement again and Jonny whimpers, shivering everywhere.

“Come here,” Jonny says. “Put your legs around me.”

He reaches back to help Patrick twine his legs around Jonny’s waist and then he’s yanking down Patrick’s underwear too, taking hold of him in his big, sure hand.

They both let go to align their bodies and then hands don’t seem as important anymore for the way their cocks are sliding together in a slow, sleek glide. Every time their cockheads brush, Jonny groans, fingers tugging loosely at Patrick’s curls like it’s so good he doesn’t know what else to with himself. Patrick can relate.

He shoves his face into Jonny’s neck and mouths at the sweaty skin, licking a stripe over his jugular.

“Tell me,” Patrick pants.

“Tell you what?”

“What you want to do to me.”

Jonny groans and runs a hand from Patrick’s ass up to his nipple, pinching it tenderly. “I want to put my tongue all over you. I want to suck you dry and shove my head between your legs and eat you out. I want to slide my cock in you and fuck you until you come all over me and then I want to lick it all up.”

“Your filthy fucking mouth. Oh my god,” Patrick says, and thinks he might just blow his load right here, right now.

Jonny looks close as well, eyes rolled back in his head and mouth dropped open as he thrusts forward with perfect precision.

So of course that’s when the moaning begins in the next room over. The very loud, very distinct wailing of two people fucking, or maybe two hyenas dying, Patrick can’t be sure. He knows it’s distracting enough to pull him and Jonny out of the moment, that the cameras are probably picking up the sound like their screeching is being transmitted on high definition speakers.

“Put that cream in my cookie, daddy!” the woman next door screams.

Him and Jonny stare at each other in mute horror.

“Is there another room we can use?” Jonny asks, face twisted into disgust.

“No,” Patrick says. “There’s some emo band in town and all the hotels are overbooked. So we’re full here too.”

“For fucking real?”

“Cockblocked from filming sex by noisier, actual sex. Who’da thunk it?” Kris says, amused.

The couple next door grow louder.

*

Patrick doesn’t believe in luck. If he did, he might think they were fucked right about now, and not in the good way. No prospects. No new locations. Nothing.

The trouble with trying to make porn on a zero dollar budget, he’s finding, is that it’s really kind of difficult. Which is probably something he should have anticipated beforehand. Still, they’ve made progress so far with the little resources available to them, maybe even enough to cobble together a montage. A musical montage of sorts, like the kind from uplifting sports movies, only with 100% less football and 100% more dick.

The idea of trying to fuck under some bleachers at an empty football field is appealing, but too risky. With their luck, they’d end up arrested for public indecency and then Jonny would murder him or his mom would find out and murder him. And if his mom finds out he’s doing amateur porn for money, that’s it. He’ll have to move to a remote cabin in the Catskills where he’ll sleep on a bed of sticks, eat river fish, and never show his face in public ever again. 

So it’s a good thing Patrick doesn’t believe in luck or he might let the unfortunate occurrences of late deter him from his goal. The goal being money that they both desperately need to live.

Patrick sighs. He pulls up the chart for the room bookings at the Skylark and checks them over again. All full. They need a new location. But where?

He texts Kris and asks him if he knows of anything, any place, anywhere in Chicago that they could possibly try to shoot a new scene. 

Bored waiting for Kris to reply, he checks Twitter and Instagram, scrolling through his favorite photography accounts and wishing he had the money to buy an SLR camera. On a whim, he looks up graduate photography programs in Chicago and finds a couple interesting ones at the Illinois Art Institute and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Not that he has the money or time to go back school at the moment. It’s a nice daydream.

The phone rings, a customer requesting to book a room next month. Patrick sets them up and then clears out his email, tidies the front desk, irritated by Kris’ clutter. It’s not the only reason he’s irritated.

After their failed attempt in room 326, Patrick, blue balls and all, had had to go work the front desk for the evening shift. They’d all waited as long as they could hoping the sex in the next room over would quiet down, or even, blessedly, stop, but no dice. He’d been itchy and tense as he dressed, watching Jonny’s mouth draw into a tight line as he left without saying goodbye. Patrick’s still edgy now himself, refusing to think about the way Jonny’s body had felt earlier pressing him into the mattress or how Jonny’s words alone had sizzled up his spine.

It doesn’t mean anything. It’s for the camera, for show. Patrick’s watched Jonny flirt enough with men and women to know when he’s turning it up. That’s all this is, all it can be. He doesn’t resent it, or take for granted what Jonny’s doing for them, how he’s always worked so hard to make sure they stay afloat.

At times it’s difficult not to feel guilty, like Patrick’s not doing his share, like his own indecision about the future has always been weighing them both down.

Maybe it has.

When he was a senior in high school, his family had asked him: _Patrick, where do you want to go to college? What do you want to study?_

He wanted Chicago, he knew that much, even if at the time he wasn’t sure why. There was something, a tingling inside his gut that felt right, that told him with every thought that this was the place he should be. That this was good, this was yes, yes, yes.

So he hadn’t worried about the rest, not when he was applying to the University of Chicago, or was accepted. Not when he was moving there or registering for classes. There was a sense that things would work out, that he would find his place and his major, that fate would intervene on some divine level and show him the way. Except that hadn’t happened, not really. He’d went in undeclared, so certain he’d find his niche that first semester in between his math courses and the journalism class, the intro into microeconomics and the comparative literature. At the time he couldn’t tell if he enjoyed journalism more for the photography element or Jonny. He was only eighteen. To make a decision, especially the wrong one, felt suffocating and impossible. So he’d waited.

After the spring, he still didn’t know, so he figured he’d give it the summer. The solution would come. Only the answer hadn’t magically appeared to him then either and it was time to register for the fall. That’s when his father pressured him into becoming an economics major. He could, his father argued, have so many opportunities with a degree of this nature. He could become a data analyst, an accountant, a politician, a statistician, a scientist, a teacher, even a stockbroker. He could make money, was usually the base reasoning, and because Patrick had always been good at math and numbers, he could do it well and without too much relative strife.

So Patrick had agreed. He’d agreed because he’d never been good at going against his father’s wishes, had never wanted to disappoint him. In the end, he’d done it anyway.

Graduating at the top of his class and the top of his department with a 3.98 GPA afforded him an option to take a paid internship with Miller Cooper & Co., one of the city's premier accounting firms. It was the type of internship that would’ve led to a job, one with a hefty salary and great benefits. Patrick’s parents had been over the moon. And he’d tried, he really did. He’d stayed with the firm for six months before he’d left, tired of the pointless monotony, even more the mundanity.

Patrick knew his parents didn’t understand, especially in comparison to Jonny, who’d always been so sure of who he was and what he wanted to do. They couldn’t comprehend Patrick’s perpetual tentativeness or restlessness, his unease with being stuck in a career that didn’t fit as long as it provided financial stability. Patrick’s not so sure he always understands either and maybe that’s the most frustrating part, the not knowing, the wanting for something that he can’t quite touch but feels is just within his grasp. 

If there were such a thing as fate, wouldn’t it have shown itself by now, wouldn’t it have given him a path? He’s tired of looking and finding no answers.

And that’s ultimately why Patrick doesn’t believe in luck, in some nameless force granting success or failure by chance rather than his own actions. It’s too much like a lost possibility, like a choice slipping from his hands when all he wants to do is have something, anything that’s his to hold on to.

The phone rings again, his cell this time. It’s Jonny.

“Guess what?” Jonny says by way of greeting. He sounds better than he did earlier, relaxed and pleased.

“What?” Patrick asks, smiling.

“The power’s back on and I have Tikka Masala for dinner.”

“Well, that’s the most beautiful sentence I’ve ever heard. Say it again.”

Jonny laughs. “When does Kris come in to take over for you?”

“In like fifteen minutes.”

“Ditch him and come home.”

“That’s not very responsible, Jonathan,” Patrick says, smile widening. The pressure in his shoulders is slowly beginning to dissipate.

“Fuck that,” Jonny says. “Home. Now.”

So demanding. Patrick bites at his bottom lip and sighs dramatically, just to hear Jonny’s amused grumble over the line.

“Okay, okay. I’m going,” Patrick concedes.

“Good,” Jonny states, so very certain of his place, as usual. 

It’s that certainty that anchors him as he shakes his head at Jonny’s ridiculousness, the line going dead before he can say goodbye. Maybe it’s true that Patrick doesn’t believe in luck, maybe he never will, but he believes in Jonny. 

He believes in them.

*

“Let there be light!” Patrick says when he walks into the apartment.

The television is on, the volume turned down, and the temperature is a toasty sixty-eight degrees. It feels like heaven.

“I know. I shed a tear when the internet started working again,” Jonny says.

Patrick laughs, taking in the spread of papers around Jonny on the couch and the coffee table in front of him. He’s got his laptop on his lap and a pen tucked behind his ear. Who knows how long he’s been working, probably for hours with no break, the damn overachiever.

The food is still on the counter, still packaged, waiting for Patrick’s arrival.

Patrick’s stomach flips.

“When’s this article due?”

“Tomorrow,” Jonny says, clacking away at the keyboard. “I’m worried it’s not flowing well.”

Patrick throws his hat, gloves, and coat on one of the kitchen chairs and goes to a cabinet to pull down two plates. He begins unloading the food.

“I’m sure it’s great, dude. Like everything you write. But I can proofread it when you’re finished. If you want?”

“Would you?” Jonny turns to him, eyes bright. “That’d be great.”

Patrick grabs two forks and balances the plates in each hand, bringing them over to the couch.

He waits for Jonny to clear his papers away and takes a seat, handing Jonny his plate and leaning back to get comfortable before he can dig into his own.

“Thanks for this,” Jonny says, squeezing Patrick’s upper thigh, his fingers warm as they rub down to Patrick’s knee.

Patrick means to say thank you for buying me dinner, thank you for cheering me up, for always being there when I need you. 

“No problem,” he says instead, leaning into Jonny’s side. He snatches up the remote and turns the channel just to rile Jonny up, enjoying the way Jonny bitches about every show he stops on until Patrick admits defeat.

“Here,” he says, handing Jonny the remote back. He pretends to be mad, swatting Jonny’s hand away when he tries to steal a piece of chicken from Patrick’s plate, chewing noisly in Patrick’s ear and licking his fingers clean of sauce afterwards. 

Jonny presses their legs together then, slowly encroaching on Patrick’s space as if it’s his own, and Patrick finds he can’t stay mad at all.

*

Slipping into bed that night feels like a luxury, his mattress warm and his belly full of curry. Kris had texted him an hour earlier to let him know about this friend of his who had an office they could borrow for a few hours on Sunday. It sounds promising. And he melts against his pillow with the knowledge that they have a plan in place, tugging his blankets around him until he’s toasty from neck to toes.

He almost falls asleep like that, cocooned and languid.

Then Jonny pops into his head. Which isn’t an irregular occurrence, he thinks about Jonny often: in the morning when he wakes, at night before bed, at work, at the grocery store, when he sees a funny joke online or an interesting news article he thinks Jonny would enjoy reading, when he’s making plans for dinner, or holidays, or all of the stupid moments in between; picking up Jonny’s dirty towels and arguing about organic juice brands. They’re roommates and best friends, it’s normal.

It’s considerably less so to be thinking about Jonny and his naked body between Patrick’s legs, his round ass under Patrick’s hands. Except now that the thought is in his head he’s wide awake again.

He twists and turns under his comforter trying to find that perfect spot to get comfortable. First on his sides, then his back, before flipping onto his front. His dick presses temptingly into the mattress and unconsciously he rubs it back and forth, wiggling around before settling. He needs to stop, let his mind drift to anything else. Only the memory of Jonny murmuring filth to him at the Skylark has his dick twitching to life, and he knows there’s no way he’s passing out now without getting off. Just the idea of trying to abstain after not being able to come earlier has his balls aching painfully.

He slips a hand beneath his sleep pants and wraps it around himself loosely, his hips doing most of the work in this position. It’s good this way, easy to imagine all of the things Jonny was half whispering in his ear. He closes his eyes and lets himself slip into the fantasy for just an instant, picturing Jonny behind him fucking into him in slow, measured strokes, or in front of Patrick, spread out and hole glistening from Patrick’s tongue lapping at him wetly. Then he remembers the taste of Jonny in his mouth - his cock so thick as he stretched Patrick’s lips wide - salty sweet and so very hot as he came down Patrick’s throat.

Biting down on his bottom lip, he tries to muffle a cry as his thoughts turn into a tangle of want, images of Jonny’s thick body, strong hands, and dark eyes tumbling through his brain while he comes.

He doesn’t feel guilty, but he thinks maybe he should.

Sleep follows quickly after.

*

They meet up with Kris in the loop on Sunday. The office he’s acquired for them to shoot in is on the tenth floor of one of Chicago’s many downtown high-rises. The entire floor belongs to an advertising firm, Patrick thinks, although it could be public relations. It’s completely empty.

“So how well do you know this guy?” Patrick asks, adjusting the strap of one of Kris’s camera bags on his shoulder.

“Does he actually work here? Is he okay with us doing this? Because I don’t want to get arrested for a B & E, okay. I have work tomorrow,” Jonny says.

He’s already in a mood today. He woke up grouchy and monosyllabic, angry there wasn’t much of anything in the fridge to eat and that their water is still turned off. They’ve had to borrow the neighbor's shower or use one at the Skylark ever since and it’s been an asspain of an inconvenience.

Kris sighs. “Pipe down, Toes. It’s fine. He owes me a favor. I’ve known him since high school. You’ll like him, he’s nice.”

Patrick’s dubious. Kris is an eclectic guy with oddball tastes. Sometimes it pays off and other times it ends with him becoming a viral sensation when he’s recorded dancing at a wedding wearing a yellow unitard. It’s a roll of the dice with him, as these things often go.

“Nate, these are the guys I talked about,” Kris says when they arrive. “You still chill with letting us use your office?”

“Yeah, man. As long as you guys don’t mind if I watch?”

“Sure, thanks for doing us a favor,” Patrick says, shrugs.

Nate is tall and blonde, cute looking in an ordinary way. He reminds Patrick of a few of his friends from back home with his oversized T-shirt and gold chain, the kind of guy that’s mostly harmless if unrefined. Patrick's uneasy at the prospect of a stranger watching him have sex anyway, even if he gets why someone would want to, the curiosity. That’s the whole point of making this in the first place, really, so people will watch it.

The reality of that jolts Patrick a little. People will see this. People he doesn’t know and will never meet will see them both.

He takes a long, slow breath. 

Beside him Jonny’s scowling and it takes an elbow in the ribs to get him to murmur an indistinct thanks as Nate unlocks the door for them.

“It’s not actually my office. It’s my boss’ office,” Nate explains. “But he’s a piece of shit who makes me work on Sunday’s with no overtime, so feel free to jizz all over his desk.”

Patrick chokes out a laugh. “I think that can probably be arranged.”

Once they’re all set up, Jonny and him changed into the suits they brought, and Nate standing guard at the door Kris says, “Ready.”

Patricks steps in front of Jonny, the toes of their shoes touching, as he smooths his hands down Jonny’s dark gray button down shirt, feeling the warm muscles underneath. “Where do you want to start?”

Jonny’s expression momentarily softens, his eyes focusing on Patrick. “With you in my lap.”

“Y-Yeah, sounds good,” Patrick says, breath stuttering at Jonny’s intense stare.

Jonny steps back toward the large leather desk chair, tugging Patrick with him by his tie. Patrick follows without complaint. He has to fold his legs and let Jonny take most of his weight as they sit down, but they both manage to fit. Jonny’s hands grab at his ass immediately, drawing him in tighter, closer. They haven’t talked much about what they were going to do today beyond clothing options to fit the set. Patrick figures they’ll wing it much like they did the last time. Which was going swimmingly well until they were rudely interrupted.

He’s not sure what to expect when Jonny slips his jacket from his shoulders, then his arms, throwing it to the side. The furrow of his brow has smoothed out a little now, the line of his mouth slightly curved.

“Can I touch you anywhere?” He asks, quiet, and pulls the bottom of Patrick’s shirt from his pants to begin unbuttoning it.

Patrick grips the arms of the chair for balance, grinding down on Jonny’s lap, forward and backward. “You don’t have to ask.”

Jonny quirks an eyebrow, teasing. “I don’t?”

He’s hard already, they both are, even though they’ve just begun and Patrick wonders suddenly if Jonny touched himself the day after their failed attempt at the Skylark. If he’s touched himself since then and thought about Patrick the way Patrick’s thought about him. He shivers at the reminder. He wants to hear Jonny repeat every dirty word from that day to him again, wants Jonny between his legs and licking over his whole body. Just the thought could make him come.

“No, you don’t,” Patrick breathes, grinding down again. “Wherever you want to put your hands is good with me.”

“I’m gonna put them everywhere.” Jonny growls and fits his hands underneath Patrick’s mostly unbuttoned shirt, rubbing over his abs and ribs, then up to his pecs, thumbs flicking over his nipples. Patrick can’t help but moan and lean into Jonny’s touch, reaching out to grip the lapels of his jacket. He doesn’t want to lose contact with Jonny’s dick brushing just below his balls, but he needs to scrape his teeth over Jonny’s throat before he fucking dies.

“Shit,” Jonny hisses, sounding both blissed out and pissed. Patrick doesn’t know what he could possibly be irritated about when the friction between them is this beautiful mix of too much and not enough.

That’s when he feels Jonny’s hands grasp his hips and literally lift him off his lap, settling him on the ground. 

“Jonny,” he says, a sigh and a question at the same time.

Jonny answers by guiding him to bend over the desk and reaching around to undo Patrick’s pants, pull them down past his knees. His shirt, unbuttoned except for at the collar is pushed up, and his underwear now around his ankles leaves Patrick exposed, mostly naked with Jonny behind him. He can’t help but moan at the thought, spreading his legs and arching his back, welcoming Jonny’s touch.

“You’re perfect,” Jonny says, fingers trailing up Patrick’s spine and down again until they come to rest on Patrick’s ass. “You’re so good for me.”

Two hands part his cheeks and the cool air makes him shiver before it’s replaced with the searing heat of Jonny’s cock, fitted along his crack. Patrick can’t help but reach out and grab at the desk as he humps his ass backwards, Jonny’s dick sliding from root to tip over his hole. It’s so good he almost bites his own tongue.

Nate is watching them from the doorway, his cheeks flushed and eyes big like saucers. It feels wrong for him to be watching this, like he’s seeing something private and new, even if that’s not really true, even if that doesn’t entirely make sense. Patrick turns his head away, looks back at Jonny, his own flush a dark red and gorgeous. He’s only minimally undressed which is so different from how Patrick’s used to seeing him that the sight settles like warm honey in his belly, his ears burning hot.

Jonny’s thrusting forward, smooth and dry against Patrick’s ass when he spits in his hand and smears it over his dick, drops dribbling down Patrick’s split. It makes everything wet and slick, the glide so much sweeter. Everything goes a little hazy when the head of Jonny’s cock catches on his rim and almost pops inside. He’s too tight really, for Jonny to go in right now, but the tease of it melts his brain and almost every bone his body. 

“Jesus,” he gasps, out of frustration and desire, the mix of both driving him wild. He claws at the desk and Jonny grips his hips harder, fingers digging into the meat of him as he grinds down perfectly.

“Can I have you?” he asks, breathless.

“God, yes,” Patrick, moans. Reaching underneath the desk as he begins to strip desperately as his cock. “Need you...need you to fuck me. Please.”

Jonny holds him tighter, grinds down harder, every upward push against his hole tugging at him deeper, cutting through everything until he’s raw. Until he knows only one thing: he wants Jonny. He wants all of him. He shakes with the truth of it.

“I’m close, baby,” Jonny says, it’s hushed, but Patrick can hear it, he’s so tuned in. 

_Baby_ , he says. And it’s for Patrick. Just for him.

Patrick comes before he even knows it’s happening, spilling all over his fist and the carpet below, making him clench around Jonny’s dick still pressed against his ass. A pair of lips touch his back, a soft tongue licking over his skin and he almost whites out at the way his skin tingles with it, with the way he’s imagining Jonny coming all over his back, on his hole, inside him.

They never get to that part because that’s when the phone begins to ring.

They wait for it to stop while Patrick recovers from his brain fizzling orgasm and Jonny presses kisses against the freckles on his back, soothing. They wait for it to stop, but once it does, it begins again. Ringing and ringing and ringing.

“Can we unplug this fucking thing?” Jonny asks, pissy.

He’s still hard against Patrick, warm and damp all over. Patrick wants to curl into him and never move again.

The phone continues to ring. Nate steps into the office looking awkward and contrite.

“Sorry guys, I should probably get this,” he says, picking up the receiver. “Hello, Hoffman and Hoffman, this is Michel Therrien’s office, Nathan speaking, how can I help you?”

They wait while Nate talks, trying to hold the position as best as possible which isn’t exactly comfortable now that Patrick’s legs are wobbly, his hand sticky, Jonny is tense behind him. The conversation continues for minutes or longer, long enough Nate mouths ‘my boss’ and frowns apologetically.

After Patrick’s cleaned himself up and they’ve both redressed without a lull in phone calls, they both look at Kris with a dawning resignation.

“We almost made it through that time! We’re getting closer now,” Kris says hopefully.

Maybe he’s learned not to push Jonny when Jonny’s in a seriously prickly mood. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to be murdered today. It’s a toss up.

“Tell that to my blue balls,” Jonny scowls. He picks up his suit jacket and walks out of the office, feet heavy against the ground.

“Sorry, balls,” Patrick murmurs. And the funny part is he actually means it.

*

“You want a sandwich? I’ve got enough to make two,” Patrick says later, when they’re back home.

He’d stopped by Trader Joe’s on the way back from their sixty-fifth failed attempt, hoping some food, a few of Jonny’s favorites, would be enough to brighten him up. The world, it seems, is intent on not letting them make this goddamn porno, but it’s going to happen. Even if they have to fuck a hundred times and in a hundred different ways. Even if Patrick loses his mind because he can’t think about anything else but Jonny’s naked body against his own, Jonny touching him and being his to touch.

His alone…

The revelation of that is still flickering like a sparkler inside of him, crackling just below his skin. It’s electricity, a tiny shock wave when Jonny brushes his skin and says, “Sure.”

Patrick’s forgets himself now. He feels made new by this discovery.

Oh, right. A sandwich.

He sets about making another one as Jonny hovers nearby, looming like a rain cloud. Patrick wants to reach out and cup his face, smooth the creases on his forehead, calm him down.

Instead he hip checks Jonny with a grin and says, “Stop frowning.”

Jonny frowns harder. “I’m not. I’m thinking.”

Patrick laughs, spreading mustard on bread. “If you say so. What about?”

Jonny’s quiet for so long Patrick thinks he’s not going to answer. But when he does he’s impossibly close, body heat like a furnace against Patrick’s body. He wants to lean into Jonny so badly he can’t remember how to put this fucking sandwich together. What comes after bread and meat? Why the shit did he buy Rye instead of wheat?

“About earlier,” Jonny says. His head is tucked down and he looks almost tentative, almost shy. It’s confusing because Jonny’s never shy.

“Earlier?” Patrick asks. “When? At the office?”

Jonny nods.

“And?”

“And what if we finished what we started?”

Patrick’s heart trips three beats. He drops the butter knife in his hand, the metal clanging against the steel sink. 

He clears his throat. “I mean, that’s the plan right?” he says cheerfully. “Just have to lock a place down without interruptions. Maybe we can try the Skylark again now that the um, the uh, the…”

Jonny’s arm slips around his shoulders, turns him until they’re facing one another.

“Patrick?” he says, softly, his eyes intent. His expression is serious, but not mad, not anymore. He just looks painfully, endearingly earnest.

Patrick can’t breathe. “Mmm?”

“Can I?” Jonny leans in, pressing Patrick backwards against the counter.

“Can you?” Patrick asks, unsure and so very sure at the same time that he has to fist his hands in Jonny’s shirt to ground himself.

Jonny bends, his breath mingling with Patrick’s breath. Lips so close. “Say it’s okay. Right now. No cameras. Just us. Say yes.”

“Y-Yes,” Patrick whispers without hesitation. And then Jonny’s mouth is on his, their dry lips brushing together so very gently.

A tongue licks across the seam of his lips, Jonny’s arms wrapping around his waist, and Patrick pulls him in harder by his shirt, opening his mouth, eager for more. When Jonny tips his face up with one hand, Patrick whimpers, hungry for the taste of Jonny in his mouth, at the realization this is their first kiss, that this is actually happening. It’s almost too much, every nerve ending on fire.

“Jonathan,” he says, breaking away for air. They dive back in almost immediately, clutching at each other, and not letting go. 

Patrick’s lightheaded with it, floating. 

The pounding of someone knocking on their door sounds far away and distant. He wants to ignore it. All that matters is Jonny’s mouth on his, Jonny wrapped in his arms, Jonny right now, here, real.

Another loud cracking knock on the door startles them apart.

“Fuck,” Jonny says hoarse, glaring towards this interruption. Patrick would glare too but he can barely think at the moment.

Their dumb fucking luck.

“Let me in, losers!” Kris shouts through the door. An echoed laugh following after.

“Can we ignore him?” Jonny asks, livid.

Patrick cups his jaw, thumbs at the scar on his top lip, the scar that he just ran his tongue over seconds ago. “Let’s just see what he wants and then we can kick him back out. Okay?”

“Fine,” Jonny’s sighs and goes to open the door.

When Kris comes in he has two pizzas, a six pack of beer, and Nate with him. 

“What’s up?” Patrick says as they come in, shaking himself out of his Jonny induced haze. “I thought you had to work?”

Kris walks passed Jonny, ignoring his folded arms and flat expression to set the food on their kitchen table.

“Trevor wanted the extra hours so he took my shift. We brought food. Thought we might make it a boys night!”

“Oh,” Patrick forces a grin. “Well, we never turn down free food do we, Tazer?”

“I guess not,” Jonny says, with less enthusiasm. 

They turn on the Bulls game as they drink and eat. Kris lights a blunt they all share as they switch from real basketball to the PlayStation kind. Patrick’s buzz taking a little of the sting out of his earlier irritation. Nate chats with him pleasantly about life, his own job as a PR grunt, Patrick’s hobbies, and how they both met Kris. His smiles are genuine, interested. In contrast Jonny yells at the television every time he misses a free throw and watches Patrick on and off, their eyes catching often.

“Yo, you got another phone charger I can use? Mine’s about to die,” Kris says, shooting a three pointer. He crows at Jonny’s quiet fuck off.

“Hold on let me check,” Patrick replies, moving from the kitchen table.

“Nice room,” Nate murmurs from Patrick’s doorway. 

Patrick turns from his desk draw, unaware anyone had followed him and grins. “I know. I’ve got great taste.”

Nate huffs out a laugh, stepping inside. “You’re funny, you know that.”

“Am I?” Patrick asks, coyly. He is obviously, but he enjoys hearing it anyway. Mostly from Jonny.

“Definitely,” Nate purrs, his smile bigger this time, his cheeks pinker.

He keeps inching closer, has been doing it all night, and at first Patrick didn’t notice it, unaware there was intent behind it, but now...now it’s feels so much more purposeful. He’s stupid for not catching this earlier.

He fidgets with his hands, picking at one of his nails. “Oh, well, thanks.”

Nate’s in front of him now, close enough to reach out and Patrick wants to move away. He stays still.

“You should let me hit you up sometime,” Nate says, easy, like he isn’t often turned down.

“Is this because you saw me doing porn earlier today? Because that’s not, um, a normal situation for me. Just so we’re on the level.”

Nate shakes his head. “That’s cool. I don’t mind. I liked what I saw though. I’d liked to see more.”

Patrick coughs, feeling his ears go hot at the implication. “I’m actually kind of involved with someone.”

It’s not exactly true. Him and Jonny haven’t made any promises to each other outside of friendship, there’s no expectation even with the kiss that happened earlier that there will be more, that they will be more. But Jonny had asked Patrick, _Can I have you?_ and _Just us?_ and Patrick’s answer is yes. Yes, always.

“Who?” Nate says, but then Nate turns and it’s Jonny watching them from the hallway.

His face is guarded.

“Jonny,” Patrick brightens. “Hey.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

He starts to back up, something broken flashing in his eyes. It cuts right into Patrick’s chest.

“You aren’t,” he says, voice cracking.

Jonny scoffs. “Clearly I am. I’ll let you two get back to it. Excuse me.”

Then he’s walking away, down the hall and toward the front door.

“Jon!” Patrick calls after him, heart pounding and afraid. “Jonathan!”

But it’s too late, he’s already gone.


	4. Chapter 4

When Patrick wakes the next morning, head full of cotton and in a quiet apartment, he checks his phone for any missed calls or messages. There’s nothing. It’s only 7:20am, the sky just now beginning to lighten, and wherever Jonny is, the stubborn, strong-headed idiot that he is - he’s probably asleep. Patrick leaves a few texts, tucking himself back under the covers and hopes when he wakes Jonny will have responded.

At 9am there’s still nothing and he’s starting to worry, mind racing with what Jonny's doing and what he’s thinking and why. Why did he just leave like that? When they were so close?

Patrick scrubs a hand over his blurry eyes and picks up his phone.

_**Voicemail Sent 9:34am:**  
Hey. Guess I’m just checking to see if you’re okay. You didn’t come home last night. I don’t know what happened or why you left or what I did. Call me back when you get this._

_**Voicemail Sent 11:05am:**  
So maybe you’re still sleeping. Or you didn’t get my last message, in which case...call me._

_**Voicemail Sent 3:42pm:**  
Jonny, please._

_**Voicemail Sent 7:16pm:**  
Are you seriously fucking freezing me out? And you won’t even tell me why? Unreal. Call. Me. Back. Asshole._

_**Voicemail Sent 9:51pm:**  
Jonathan, c’mon. Don’t do this. I’m starting to freak out. Can you at least let me know you’re not dead on the side of the road somewhere? Before I go crazy? Can you at least tell me that!_

_**Voicemail Sent 12:40am:**  
YOU KNOW WHAT, FUCK YOU. YOU FUCKING SELFISH DICKFUCK. _

_**Voicemail Sent 3:08am:**  
Look, there’s a room open at the Skylark. We should try to shoot this last scene. I’ll be there on Thursday at seven. Show up if you can. Also.....I was thinking... and maybe after we finish filming tomorrow we pump the breaks. On all of this. Obviously you want space and...yeah, maybe this should be it for a while. If it’s what you want. See you soon._

*

Patrick’s tired by the time Thursday rolls around. He hasn’t slept much, he hasn’t talked to Jonny beyond the return text he received the day before that simply said _I’ll be there_ , and he hasn’t managed to concentrate on anything besides what’s happened since Sunday.

If Jonny would just get his head out of his ass for one minute and explain to Patrick what’s wrong, maybe they could fix this. Maybe it would all stop unraveling in his hands. It hurts, the silence and the distance, more than he could’ve imagined, more than anything he’s felt before. He’s grown so used to Jonny being there, having Jonny at his side for everything, he doesn’t know what to do on his own.

He doesn’t want to get used to this.

Two soft raps on the door pull him from his thoughts, from where he was sitting on the bed and staring at the ugly green hotel carpet.

“Hey, look who decided to show up,” he says flatly as Jonny steps into the room. And that’s not how he meant to kick things off, he doesn’t want to fight right before they’re about to fuck, but seeing Jonny’s dead-eyed cold expression pulls at something painfully inside his guts. It makes him angry.

“Don’t start,” Jonny says, and begins slipping off his jacket, unknotting his tie. He must’ve just come from work.

“Why? Because you’ll just walk out and disappear again?”

“Didn’t think you’d noticed with Nate around.”

Patrick laughs. “Are you for real right now?”

Jonny shrugs. Patrick knows he cares, but it’s like getting the wind knocked out of him seeing Jonny hide it this way.

He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming or crying or maybe both.

“You know what? Let’s just get this over with.”

“Fine by me,” Jonny says, unbuttoning his shirt.

“Good,” Patrick snaps back.

“GREAT.”

When they’re down to their boxer briefs, Patrick goes to each camera and hits record, then gets on the bed, pushing down the comforter with his feet. He smooths his fingers through his hair, rubs a sweaty palm over his thigh, his hands won’t stay still.

“Where’s Kris?” Jonny’s asks, joining him on the bed.

“He set up the cameras and then I told him we didn’t need him. Got a problem with that?” Patrick says, sounding bitchy even to his own ears.

“Whatever,” Jonny shrugs, wiggling out of his briefs.

Patrick follows suit for lack of anything else to do, taking in a long breath. They sit naked together silently for a beat, both looking anywhere but at each other. Jonny’s dick is soft, hanging gently between his spread thighs. Patrick glances down at his own dick, limp and pink at the tip. He thinks this might be the most miserable he’s ever felt, bar that time in junior year when he almost died of food poisoning. Jonny never left his side the whole time. Not when he was running from his dorm to the bathroom and back, not when he had to practically carry Patrick into the emergency room, and not the two days after when he brought Patrick water and 7up - wiping sweat from his forehead with a cool wash cloth and keeping Patrick warm through all of his shivers.

He’s always been there, from the moment they met. He’s here now.

Patrick never wants him to be anywhere else.

“Ready?” Jonny asks softly.

“Whenever you are,” he mumbles.

He’s unsure of what to do, if he should touch Jonny first, or wait. Jonny makes the decision for him, curling a hand over his knee and running it up along his inner thigh, fingertips teasing over the sensitive skin. Patrick shivers, watching Jonny’s big hand trace along the join where his leg meets his pelvis, over his hip and back down to wrap around his length. It fattens up almost immediately. Every time Jonny touches him, he glows inside, like there are Christmas lights under his skin. He leans down to lick over Patrick’s lips, sucking Patrick’s tongue into his mouth. And just like that, everything else washes away.

The fighting and space between them crumbles, dissolving, as if it never was as Patrick laces his arms around Jonny’s neck and pulls him down. He spreads his legs for Jonny to maneuver on top of him while they make out, Patrick greedy for Jonny’s hands on his body, their tongues tangling together. It’s still so amazing, better even as Jonny’s fingers move below his balls to rub at his dry hole. Jonny kisses him deeply, almost like he’s desperate for more, mouthing at Patrick’s neck like he wants bite him, maybe leave a mark.

Patrick shudders at the thought, grasping blindly for the lube on the bed side table and pushing it at Jonny, who withdraws his hand, gets his fingers soaking and slides them right back in.

“I thought maybe I’d lick you out first, get you wet, but I can’t wait. I need to be inside you now,” Jonny pants. He sounds out of breath even though Patrick’s the one being fingered within an inch of his life, and the tiny moans emanating from deep in his throat are short circuiting Patrick’s brain.

“Want all of it,” Patrick says. “Your mouth, your cock...you.”

Jonny pinches at the base of his dick, eyes squeezing shut for a minute as he settles himself. When he catches Patrick’s gaze, his eyes are almost black, glittering darkly as he crushes his lips to Patrick’s in a bruising kiss, his fingers twisting just perfectly and hitting his prostate. Patrick cries out, hips fucking back on Jonny’s hand as he rakes his teeth over Jonny’s jaw.

He’s leaking all over his belly by this point, Jonny’s heavy dick leaving trails of drops on him too. Patrick grasps the thick length of him and spreads the precome drooling from the tip over the head, watching Jonny stutter in his ministrations, losing the rhythm. He snatches up the lube, pouring enough in his palm to slick Jonny up more, get him messy wet as he jacks him in time to Jonny’s fingers pumping into his ass.

“God,” he moans, ready to come just from this, so soon, too soon. Jonny’s fingers are a goddamn miracle. But Patrick wants more.

Jonny reaches for a foil packet on the sheets, something Patrick missed with everything else going on. He brings it up to his mouth to rip it open when Patrick stops him with a look.

“You don’t need that. Unless you want it,” he gestures at the condom.

Jonny’s eyes widen, just a fraction, as he licks his lips. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” Patrick says, serious, and doesn’t look away from Jonny’s searching face.

Jonny throws the condom aside, moves closer.

Their bodies align as Jonny hovers directly over him now, trailing his gaze over Patrick’s naked torso and down to his stiff cock, his balls tight, and the glossy lube running down the crease of his ass. Goosebumps pebble his skin from just being looked at, the way Jonny’s expression is almost worshipful. Patrick feels pinned in place by it.

He lets out a shaky breath.

“Jonny,” he whispers, cupping the back of his neck, drawing him near. Patrick kisses his cheek, then his chin, and lips, slow. He kisses him so slowly and slower still, until just their breaths are mingling, mouths touching but unmoving as Jonny rubs his dick over Patrick’s hole twice and begins to push in.

It stings in the best way. It hurts, but it’s sweet to hear Jonny’s aching moans, how he doesn’t push too fast, how he waits for Patrick once he’s all the way inside.

“Fuck you’re big,” Patrick gasps. And it’s true of Jonny and this moment, it’s the biggest thing he’s ever felt. It’s overwhelming.

“Is it too much?” Jonny asks, straining to stay still.

“It’s so good,” Patrick says. “I knew you would be. I knew it.”

“Yeah? How’d you know?” Jonny asks and when he says it, he sounds so vulnerable his voice shakes.

“Because I know you,” Patrick answers simply.

Jonny shoves his face into Patrick’s neck and moans, the sound wounded and raw.

“Patrick, baby. Need to move.”

Patrick rakes a hand through Jonny’s hair at the nape, wraps his legs around his waist, tight. “C'mon, give it to me,” he murmurs right into his ear. “Wreck me, Jonny.”

“God, you’re fucking killing me here.”

“I ca-,” Patrick begins, but is cut off by Jonny’s mouth on his once again.

Jonny’s hips are thrusting in and out, just little pumps at first. He picks up momentum quickly, fucking into Patrick deep, every drive inside him measured and fierce, all-consuming. Patrick’s greedy for more. He sucks bruises into Jonny’s shoulder, clinging to Jonny’s back as leverage so he can meet Jonny thrust for thrust.

“This okay?” Jonny asks and Patrick laughs. He wants to die it’s so good.

“Yeah,” he smiles, kissing away the concentration from Jonny’s face. “Yes. Just like that. Oh fuuuuuck.”

There are hands all over his body, tickling up his sides, fingers flicking over his nipples and squeezing his biceps, looping around his wrists. He feels so close to the brink already, moaning louder with each brush of Jonny inside him, unable to keep quiet. Maybe the occupants next door can hear them, maybe the entire floor, but he doesn’t fucking care, he just never wants this to end. Having Jonny like this, every piece of him, is like finding something he didn’t know was missing, a lock slotting into place.

Patrick tries to hold on, he doesn’t want this to be over, wants to fuck just like this for the rest of the night, until the end of time if that’s a choice. There’s a simmering low in his belly that’s been building, that sharp curl that lets him know he’s about to go off. He shuts his eyes to the sight of Jonny, gorgeous, and moving on top of him, but it’s not enough. When Jonny’s hand loosely grasps at his cock and begins to move over the length of him, he’s gone, spilling over Jonny’s fist and onto his belly in long, white stripes as he shouts, overcome.

“Fuck,” Jonny pants, eyes glassy and amazed. “You’re beautiful.”

Patrick kisses the breath out of him, clenching tight and pulling on Jonny’s hair as he moans helplessly. He loses time for a while, floating in post-orgasmic bliss as Jonny comes inside him minutes later, biting at his neck and pressing him down into the sheets.

Neither of them move, breathing in time, bodies still slickly sweaty and touching from head to toe.

It should hurt when Jonny eventually pulls out, he even hisses a little at the sting, but it’s less about how tender he feels than the emptiness Jonny’s left there in his wake. 

Patrick’s never been known to be a cuddler or hugger. It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy being held, it’s just that with most people he prefers his personal space, doesn’t want to be hemmed in or smothered. With Jonny it’s always been different, the hugs, the napping, the tugging on clothes and appendages always brushing felt more like a reassurance than a restraint. It’s always felt right, safe.

Losing Jonny after having him is leaving Patrick with a new sensation he’s unused to, one he desperately wants to know how to get back.

A tongue traces through the come cooling on Patrick’s belly and his eyes fly open. His body feels made of jelly, every inch of him undone, but when Jonny begins to lick him clean, his stomach first, then his cock, and finally farther down to his hole, Patrick goes tight as a string as he arches off the bed. He’s sensitive all over, too sensitive almost for the way Jonny’s lapping at him, taking him apart.

He wants to say Jonny’s name, to curse, to cry out, but all he can do is sob silently underneath Jonny’s touch, his dick twitching as it valiantly spurts out a few more drops of come.

Everything goes quiet for a while after that, the room a little spinny and Patrick sex drunk and tangled with Jonny on the bed.

Nothing is magically fixed because they fucked. Nothing erased. Patrick thinks about saying it anyway. Thinks about turning his head and pressing his lips to Jonny’s sternum and saying, _I’ve been stupid about you since I was eighteen years old. But you’re the only thing I’ve ever been sure of - you’re the only one I want._

As he takes a breath, blinking the blurriness from his eyes, Jonny moves out from beneath him and gets off the bed. 

It’s over.

Patrick watches him walk to the bathroom to clean up, turning on the shower and slipping inside. He could join him, maybe. If things didn’t feel so tentative again, if Patrick didn’t feel so stripped open. Instead he cleans himself off as best he can with some tissues, collecting his clothes from the floor before remembering the cameras are still running. He turns them off and dresses first, moving gingerly as he steps into his clothes and packs the equipment away.

Steam billows out from the bathroom as Jonny emerges ten minutes later, skin rosy fresh and smooth.

Patrick doesn’t reach out to touch him, but he doesn’t look away as Jonny drops his towel to put on his clothes. He’s earned that privilege if nothing else.

“Are you coming home tonight?” he asks, clearing his throat.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why?”

“You know why,” Jonny says, somber.

“No? I don’t?” Patrick says, pulse racing. “I thought something was happening between us, something real, and you fucking bailed.”

Jonny’s eyes flash then, his mouth pursed. “You were flirting with some random dipshit in front of me two hours after I almost fucked you. Explain to me how that’s real?”

“I wasn’t flirting! He was coming on to me.”

“And you didn’t want it?” Jonny asks.

It’s a serious question, one that goes with Jonny’s heated expression, and the moment it sinks in is similar to what Patrick imagines being gutted feels like.

He turns away.

“Patrick, wait, I didn’t mean that,” Jonny says, reaching for his arm.

Patrick recoils. He’s done. “Oh, I think you did. That’s the worst part.”

“No, I didn’t,” he says, looking visibly wretched now. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just.”

“Just what? Actually you know what, nevermind. I think you were right before, you shouldn’t come back tonight.” 

“Tonight or at all?”

Patrick takes several steps away, needing the distance. He might puke. “I don’t know. Maybe this isn’t working anymore.”

“Maybe it isn’t,” Jonny parrots.

“And maybe we shouldn’t live together anymore,” Patrick adds.

“Maybe we shouldn’t.”

Everything is unraveling so fast now, but Patrick can’t stop it and he doesn’t know if he wants too. He knows he wants to hurt Jonny as much as Jonny’s hurting him. 

“Fine,” he says, coolly disinterested.

“Great,” Jonny says flushed, his jaw grinding. He hates when Patrick does this, when he shuts down.

“Fantastic.”

“Fuck this!” Jonny spits, grabbing his jacket from the chair next to him and storming out.

“Fuck you,” Patrick tells his retreating figure.

His eyes burn.

*

“How’d it go?” Kris asks him the next day.

Patrick’s sweeping the entryway of the Skylark listlessly, staring out at the flurries falling from the sky in almost slow motion.

He shrugs. “It’s done. Jonny’s not talking to me now, but it’s done.”

Kris is sitting at the front desk, spinning around in the office chair and playing Candy Crush on his phone. It’s a quiet night, only one new customer in the last six hours. Earlier a cat got in, a scraggly looking orange tabby, and they went on a little chase, trying hunting it down before it pissed everywhere. They still haven’t found him. If he stays for winter Patrick’s thinking of naming him Catrick Kane III.

“You guys fight about Nate?” Kris asks.

“How’d you know?” Patrick says, wondering what Kris saw that night, what Nate said to him. If Kris has spoken with Jonny. “It’s not really about him, but it started that way.”

Kris is still staring down at his phone when he says, “Nate wants me to give you his number. He’s into you.”

“Oh. Um. That’s nice, but no thanks.”

“That’s what I figured,” Kris says. He curses at his game, throwing his phone aside and spinning around twice in his chair before setting a knowing grin on Patrick. “Jonny Jonny Hotcakes will come around. Don’t worry.”

Patrick sighs forlornly. “I don’t know.”

Kris laughs.

“What?”

“You two fuckers are so dumb about each other. It’s unbelievable.”

“I think it’s just me. I’m the one that ruined everything. I should’ve never made him do this porn shit. Everything was fine before that.”

“You didn’t make him do anything. Pretty sure he was there because he wanted to be, ja feel?” Kris says. 

“Maybe,” Patrick murmurs.

He returns to sweeping, which isn’t much more than moving the same dirt around in circles, but it gives him something to do other than sit around and think and be depressed. From across the room Kris is watching him in amusement, his eyes exasperated.

“Remind me that I owe you an _I told you so_ when you two are getting fucking engaged and shit a year or two from now.”

The tips of Patrick’s ears go hot, his entire body humming at the thought. He bites at the inside of his cheek. “That’s optimistic.”

Kris steps around the desk, his keys in one hand and his parka in the other as he treads over to Patrick. He slaps him amicably on the back.

“Nah, man. I just see what’s there,” he says. “I’m awesome that way. Now go clean up the dead rat in the hallway, I’m going to pick up tacos.”

Patrick briefly wonders if it was there before or after Catrick arrived this afternoon, not that it matters. He really needs a new job.

*

The following two weeks go like this: he works, he sleeps, he eats. He spends one night curled up on Sharpy’s couch and another on Seabs’, too desperate to spend the evenings alone. He barely sees Jonny, and if he does it’s because Jonny’s sneaking in before dawn to grab new clothes, like he thinks Patrick can’t hear him moving around. They don’t talk. Somehow the water in the apartment is turned back on, although Patrick hasn’t paid the bill, and the coffee filters are stocked, new groceries left in the refrigerator. It’s such a Jonny thing to do, make sure Patrick’s taken care of even if he’s not personally there to do it himself. It makes his heart ache.

Nothing’s the same without him. Nothing feels right. Living in their shitty apartment and going to his shitty job was an adventure with Jonny, it was the punchline to some joke they were going to tell their grandkids when they were old and gray, those crazy years they scraped by with no money and only each other.

It’s empty without him now, hollow. There’s no point. Without Jonny to tell his stories to, he’s just another college grad wasting his days at a job going nowhere, in a life standing still.

He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, but he knows he can’t do this anymore.

He looks at his open laptop and the collection of tabs he’s kept up for the past month. The photography graduate program at UIC is the one he’s come back to the most often, reading and rereading the admission requirements and course descriptions. He’ll need to put together a portfolio. If he applies for financial aid and grants, he could do this. If he works at night and on the weekends, he could do this without possibly starving. He’s done the math, he’s pretty good at it.

It’s a risk. He’s behind the curve here. The probability of failure or rejection is high. His parents might be disappointed, or more disappointed than they already are, even if the decision isn’t up to them anymore. Maybe this isn't exactly what Jonny meant when he said he felt left behind, but he is moving forward - and if Patrick wants to move forward with him - he has to make a choice, a real one. He can wait forever for the perfect sign, for the right time to feel ready. There’s no guarantee it’ll come. Maybe he needs to take the leap anyway.

Patrick picks up his phone with a shaky breath. He dials Jonny’s number by heart. It rings three times before he answers.

“Hey,” Jonny says. He sounds tired.

“Hi,” Patrick replies. “How’s it going?”

“It’s fine,” he says, almost weary. “What’s up?”

Patrick clears his throat, rubs the palm of his free hand over his knee again and again.

“I was thinking and I think I want to go back to school. For photography, maybe. I think. And I was just wondering what you think about...what I think. I mean about it. About school,” he says, rolling his eyes at himself. He’s suddenly lost the ability to speak like a normal human apparently.

“I _think_ ,” Jonny says, chuckling a little, “you should do it. If you want it and it makes you happy you should go after it.”

Patrick’s nodding dumbly at his phone, still stuck on the sound of Jonny’s small laugh and how it’s possibly the best sound he’s ever heard. Fuck, he misses him so much.

“I do want it,” he says. I want you, too.

“You’ll kill it, Kaner. You always do. Even when you’re making amateur porn.”

Patrick smiles to himself, warm all over from Jonny’s compliment, his unwavering faith.

“About the porn. I might not submit it.”

“Really?” Jonny says.

“Yeah. It might not be the best idea right now, considering,” Patrick says. Considering he can’t bring himself to look at the footage and watch Jonny touch him, kiss him, fuck him and not have him. Considering that even the thought of anyone else seeing Jonny’s naked body now makes him want to tear down cities with his bare hands.

“Well, it’s up to you. I agreed to do it. Just don’t use my given name, if you do. I don’t want my family accidentally googling me and having this pop up,” Jonny says, his voice more strained than it was a minute ago.

Patrick’s not sure what he did wrong now.

“Jonny…”

“I meant to tell you, they offered me a job this morning, at the Tribune. Full time. Starts in a couple weeks.”

“That's awesome, Jon! I'm...I’m really proud of you,” Patrick says.

“Uh thanks,” Jonny says, almost flustered. “It’s a significant pay raise, which is good. So if you still want me to go I can be out of your way - out of the apartment - in a bit. Just thought I'd let you know.”

Patrick’s stomach drops. “Oh,” he sighs.

The air hangs silent and heavy between them.

“Alright, my break is almost over, I gotta go. I'll talk to you later.”

“Jonny.”

“Bye.”

“Don't go,” he whispers into the static.

*

The rest of the day is a fog. His conversation with Jonny keeps replaying itself in his head to the point that he can’t focus on anything else. He does menial tasks instead to keep himself busy: washing the dishes, taking out the trash, answering emails, replying to texts from his sisters, flipping through Netflix over and over and not finding a single thing worth watching, chewing at his nails.

Around eight in the evening he’s too mentally exhausted to bother watching anymore Dexter reruns, or sit upright on the couch, or even be awake.

He goes to Jonny’s room instead of his own, slipping under Jonny’s dark blue comforter and wrapping himself up in Jonny’s sheets, the smell of him all around Patrick, lingering. It’s not anywhere as good as having Jonny here with him, but it’s enough for now, enough to draw him into a comforting stillness.

He’ll call Jonny tomorrow and make this better. He’ll fix it in whatever way he has to as long as Jonny stays. As long as he _stays._

*

Patrick wakes later to the sound of the front door being unlocked, footsteps moving around in the living room. The clock says it’s half-past midnight, the sky outside a pitch black. Patrick smacks his dry mouth open twice, licking at his lips as he rubs at his eyes. When he opens them Jonny’s standing in his bedroom doorway, expression sweetly defenseless, his shoulders slumped.

“Hi,” he says, low.

“Jonny,” Patrick breathes, pushing up onto his elbows.

Jonny shoves his hands in his pockets, lips pressed together likes he’s working up the courage to speak. Patrick’s never seen him this nervous maybe ever.

“I need to say something.”

Patrick nods, his heart thundering. “Okay.”

“Listen, I’m an asshole,” he begins, rubbing the back of his neck. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t. It was me. I was freaking the fuck out. I know I’ve always been a little territorial with you and I was never really sure why. I just figured it was because, you know, you were my best friend and I get that way with the people I care about. But it got so much worse when we started this porn crap. I just wanted to be close to you all the time, I wanted you with me. I wanted to touch you everywhere. And I didn’t want to share. It’s some caveman bullshit, I know. But the more I tried not to feel that way, the more I did. And then you kissed me without the cameras on, like you wanted me, and I thought you felt the same. But...” 

“But then Nate showed up,” Patrick finishes for him.

“Then Nate showed up,” Jonny nods, frowning.

Patrick throws his arms up. “And you thought what? That I’d changed my mind? That I was that fucking fickle of a person to throw our friendship away and whatever was growing between us over someone I met that same day!?”

“No. I don’t. I promise you I don’t,” Jonny says gently, placating. “I just saw you guys laughing and him feeling you when things were still uncertain between us and I lost it. I was... scared. I don’t think I can do this and have you change your mind.”

“You think it’d be any easier for me?” Patrick says, voice rising and eyes bulging. “You think I’m not just as fucking invested here? You piss me off and drive me absolutely fucking crazy, but I can’t lose you either. I won’t.”

“I’m sorry. I know you hated this shit with Cole. I don’t mean to be like him.”

“You’re nothing like Cole. You’re a thousand times better than him.”

Jonny’s lips twitch at this admission, his cheeks and neck flushed all over now.

“You’re in my bed.”

“Well yeah, I missed you, dumbass.”

“Yeah?”

Patrick tries, he really does, but he can’t help the way a dopey smile spreads across his face. He sighs dramatically and lifts the comforter. “You’re exhausting. Come here.”

Jonny practically rips off his jacket and kicks off his sneakers, jumping on the bed and crowding in next to Patrick, eager and eyes so very bright.

They stare at each other dumbly for a long beat.

“So what if I don't move out?” he asks.

“What if _I_ don't want you to move out?” Patrick replies.

“Do you?”

“No.”

“Patrick,” he says, cupping Patrick’s face.

“Stay, please.”

Jonny kisses him then, tender and slow, his mouth tasting of home.

“I love you,” he says, lips touching Patrick’s cheek and the racing pulse of his neck.

“You…um…. Like in a friend way?” Patrick asks, the whole world caught in his throat.

“No.”

“No?”

“I'm really fucking in love with you,” Jonny says, and kisses him again, with everything he has in him, with every little piece, until Patrick’s panting and clutching at the back of his shirt.

“Good,” Patrick says, a little dizzy from lack of oxygen and so incandescently happy.

“That's it? That's all you're giving me?!” Jonny huffs. 

Patrick pets at his chest, pushing him down into the mattress so he can fully settle on top. “Cool your jets, I'm just thinking.”

“Thinking about what?!” Jonny asks, all worked up and cute as fuck. He grips Patrick’s hips like he’s almost afraid Patrick might get up and walk away, like Patrick isn’t exactly right where he wants to be forever.

He taps at his chin a few times, teasing, and enjoying the way it makes Jonny’s nostrils flare. “About whether we should move your stuff into my room or mine into yours.”

“Oh my god,” Jonny groans. “You little shit.”

He pulls Patrick close, biting at his neck and pinching his ass while Patrick laughs and wiggles on top of him. There’s a mole below Jonny’s jaw that Patrick’s been staring at for years and he’s going to leave a mark there now because he can, so he does, reveling in Jonny’s moans.

“You're unbelievable,” Jonny says, although he doesn’t sound adoring so much as longsuffering. The shithead.

“I know,” Patrick says smugly anyway.

“That wasn't a compliment.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Why do I put up with you though?” Jonny asks, twining their hands together, his thumb brushing over Patrick’s skin.

Patrick squeezes his hand. “Because you’d go crazyyyyyyy without me. Because you want no one but meeeeeeeee.”

“Stop yourself. God,” Jonny says, pulling Patrick all the way down. Patrick goes easily.

“Hey, Jon,” he says, quiet, and presses his face to Jonny’s neck.

“Yeah?”

“Love you,” he says fiercely. “So much.”

Jonny wraps his arms around him tight, kisses his temple and the cuff of his ear. He kisses Patrick’s jaw and the hollow of his throat, sucking at his pulse point like he’s trying to find a livewire to Patrick’s heartbeat. _Yours_ , Patrick thinks, giddy and confident under Jonny’s attention. He tilts his neck up for more. It’s granted to him without pause, Jonny lavishing him with affection, his hands all over Patrick’s body like he doesn’t know where to touch and where he wants to touch Patrick is all over.

They’re both hard, their dicks pressing together between Patrick’s sleep pants and Jonny’s jeans. A barrier Patrick won’t stand to have between them. He needs bare skin, Jonny’s bare skin and perfect body against his own. It’s all he wants. And knowing he can have this, have Jonny, is almost too much, it makes Patrick want everything at once. Images like photographs flicker through his mind, the story of them. Only it’s not of college or their apartment, or even right now; it’s of the future. Of the house they’ll own and the vows he’ll someday tie around Jonny’s finger, of the life they’ll build as they grow old together.

It’s Jonny and him. It’s them.

They undress as soon as they realize that they’re touching with more and more intent, clothes impeding the process. Patrick sighs when their naked bodies come into contact, Jonny above him, the feeling already so familiar even though it’s relatively new still. But Jonny’s always felt familiar in some intrinsic way, even from that very first day. Like Patrick had been waiting, holding a space open for him hidden inside his chest and not knowing why or who for, until Jonny came to claim it.

Patrick wraps himself around Jonny now, dragging their bodies together, affirming. It’s so good, better even now that Patrick knows that after they’re finished they can rest and then do it again and again, forever. There is no end.

He fits his hand around Jonny’s cock, letting Jonny fuck his fist for a few strokes before he pulls Jonny closer, so they can rub their dicks in time. They get a good rhythm going, their precome messy and dripping between them. Jonny doesn’t seem to care if they ruin the sheets or the bed, every ounce of his attention focused on the way their bodies are moving, how the flushed heads of their cocks are bumping together. Patrick bites at his shoulder, licks at his neck, moans when Jonny cups his ass and squeezes, proprietary. He does the same, fitting his hand to the nape of Jonny’s neck and yanking him down into another searing kiss. Everything goes a little hazy when Jonny flips them, Patrick on top, straddling Jonny’s waist and urging Patrick to ride him. Distantly he wishes for lube, for Jonny on him and in him and anyway he can have him. He’s desperate for more and ecstatic at the idea that it’ll be there waiting for him, that Jonny’s here and his.

It only takes Patrick folding his hand around the both of them and tugging a few times before he whites out, this thought swirling in his head. Even more striking is Jonny beneath him, writhing. His gorgeous moans causing Patrick to come all over the both of them. 

Fuck, Jonny’s so hot it should be criminal. Patrick wants to suck him off, let Jonny finish in his mouth, but his legs are still shaky from his own orgasm and Jonny’s right at the edge, teetering. Patrick gathers up the mess he just made and smears it down over Jonny’s cock, stroking him through his climax. The sight makes him want to get hard again, now. He’s mesmerized watching the way Jonny’s losing it for Patrick’s touch, his mouth sweetly parted and his eyes so heavy. He’s perfect. And it’s almost unfair no one else will ever get to see this, only Patrick, but then he sinks blissfully into Jonny’s waiting arms and is selfishly, achingly grateful for it, for all of the moments they’ll keep.

Jonny nuzzles his face against Patrick’s hair. “You know what this means? You're mine forever.” 

“I mean, I guess,” Patrick says, shrugging. “If I have to.”

“You're gonna be a trial for the rest of our lives, aren't you?” Jonny says, kissing him until they’re both shivering, until they’re both smiling wide enough to hurt. 

“The rest of our lives,” Patrick echoes. “I like that. Has a nice ring to it.”


End file.
